In many cultures – not just in India – families of patients stay very close to them when they are in hospital: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers spent entire day’s sitting close to the patient in the room and assist where possible. Often then many hours pass and they cannot do anything but being emotional-wise close to their beloved. Be it because the medical stuff handles what is needed, be it because they are not informed enough how to help. When the patient then is at home, often there is even a lack of knowledge on how to help the best the patient. That’s where Edith Elliot started to think of and developed her social enterprise in India:

There is an underutilised resource – families of patients. Why not equipping them to play a pivotal role in the healthcare system by providing skills, awareness and tools to family members who accompany patients in hospitals? 

This is a win to all: the patients and the relatives’ care  depend less on medical professionals like doctors and nurses. The care at home would work better, the rates of re-hospitalisation could become less, family members would feel more useful and for sure the patient would benefit from it. 

How it works?

Edith is equipping hospitals and nurses to leverage families of patients as caregivers. She is institutionalizing this by partnering with hospital chains and training “nurse-educators” from their staff to in turn train family members to take over these procedures through video tutorials and practical demonstrations. 

That’s what she says: “We meet our users where they are and, with our tools, are able to lower preventable readmissions, reduce length of stay, and highly improve quality of care and patient satisfaction. Hospitals use our simple, interactive and low-cost platform, as an effective tool to prepare patients for a safe and speedy recovery at home.”

Have a look at the video. 

Related content

Care In Action – Noora Health
Video

www.Noorahealth.org