A medical app called
EASE is simple and crucial: It enables clinicians and operating room staff to send Snapchat-like updates to families who are anxiously awaiting news.
About two years ago, Patrick de la Roza finally decided to jump ship.
He left his job as the administrator of Florida Hospital Nicholson Center and fully dedicated his time to his 13-employee company, EASE Applications.
“It was terrifying,” he said on a recent afternoon, sitting in the lobby of Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. “But I love it. I’m never going back.”
De la Roza co-founded EASE Applications in 2013 with his physician brother Kevin and two other Orlando Health doctors, Drs. Hamish Munro and William DeCampli.
The idea behind EASE, or Electronic Access to Surgical Events, is simple: it enables clinicians and operating room staff to send Snapchat-like updates to families who are anxiously waiting outside.
“It was night and day,” said Carol, whose adopted son has a serious heart condition and had his first surgery at Arnold Palmer Hospital before the EASE app was available.
“[After EASE] we were getting photos, which was absolutely amazing because you’re like, oh my gosh, they were opening him up or they were explaining this is what we’re doing now. We felt like we were there.”
“There’s no reason hospitals should be letting families sit in the waiting room in the dark. The technology is there.” Patrick de la Roza, co-founder of EASE Applications
She asked that her last name not be used because of a complicated adoption process.
The EASE app was first rolled out at Arnold Palmer Hospital, in the pediatric cardiac subspecialty on procedures lasting over an hour, but it quickly spread to orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, and neurosurgery, ICU, NICU and regular med-surge floors. The app is available for both pediatric and adult units.
More than 35 hospitals and health systems nationwide have started using the app, according to the company, and 11 more are in talks with EASE.
Hospitals pay a subscription fee, which is based on the number of operating rooms and bed size. The fees charged to hospitals range from mid- to upper-$20,000 to sixfigure contracts, said de la Roza, CEO of EASE Applications. Families aren’t charged.
“We’re talking to the big guys now,” said de la Roza. “There’s no reason hospitals should be letting families sit in the waiting room in the dark. The technology is there.”
The clinicians make sure to send the right images to the right families by scanning patients’ hospital bracelets.
EASE is now available in nine languages. Hospitals can brand the app. And with a new feature, patients can donate to the hospital’s foundation.
Photos and videos vanish from the app within a minute and they can’t be screenshot, but parents have come up with creative ways to keep the memories. Like Carol, and her husband, Scott, they take pictures and videos of each other’s phones when an update pops up.
Carol said she belongs to a support group for parents with children with heart conditions, and “I’m like, ‘you guys have got to get your hospitals to get on board with this because it makes your life totally different from waiting for that phone call or for someone to come out.’”
The company has collected data to quantify patients’ positive feedbacks and show that the app can help improve the hospitals’ patient satisfaction scores, which can play a role in reimbursements.
EASE Application surveys showed that patient-satisfaction scores improved in all hospitals, said de la Roza.
“We can now say that it’s more than just a feel-good story. Now it’s scientifically proven to improve patient satisfaction,” de la Roza said. “Every single one of our hospitals has seen an increase and that’s incredibly validating because we already knew the feel-good side of this, but now it’s causing administrators to take notice.
EASE Applications is a private company, and de la Roza didn’t share details about his future plans for the company.
“I just want to grow this and I want it in every hospital. I think it should be a standard of care,” he said.