UW Spine Surgery Mobile Coach

The University of Washington Spine Surgery Mobile Coach helps patients prepare for spine surgery and to recover faster from this surgery. This is a Mobile App specifically designed for the University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center, Spine Clinic.
Contents

Educational Lessons on:

· Surgery Overview – the surgery preparation activities, the inpatient stay, and discharge.

· Goals – How to set and keep focused on your recovery goals

· Managing Pain – What to expect, how to manage your pain, alternatives to medications

· Medications – Explains the different kinds of pain medications, with their risks and benefits.

· Movement – Learn how moving – before, during and after your surgery – will help you reduce pain and recover faster.

· Nutrition – Your body needs more calories and more protein to help recovery from surgery. Learn what types of foods you need to be eating to recover faster.

· Sleep – Good quality sleep helps reduce pain and heal faster.

· Mind/Body – Keeping a positive attitude is important. Learn how to manage your thoughts and keep calm and positive.


At the end of some of these lessons, you can create your own personal action plan. For example, if you plan to change what you eat after your surgery, you create your own list of foods.

Tracking your progress in 5 Ways

These five areas all help you prepare for the surgery and recover faster. At the end of these education lessons, you will create your personal action plan.
· Movement

· Nutrition

· Sleep

· Mind/Body

· Managing Pain


To help keep on track, you enter your progress in these five areas every day. If you are doing badly, move the slider to the left. If you are doing well, move the slider to the right. You can view your progress over time. Automatically,

Tracking your medications

When you setup the App with your information, we also ask about your pain medications. We want you to track how much pain medication you are taking before and after the surgery. We ask about the type of medication, the strength, and the number of pills you take every day. After your surgery, you will have an extra supply of strong pain medication. As you recover, you will have less and less pain. After a few days though, you won’t need this extra medications. In general, we hope you will reduce the pain medication you need to a minimum and use mptoms ways of dealing with pain.

Checklists

The App has some checklists that will help you prepare for your surgery.
· Surgery Planning checklist

· Pre-op checklist

· Discharge checklist

· At home checklist


Calendar

The calendar screen shows all your surgery appointment dates. The App will send you reminders about these appointments and recommend that you complete checklists to help you prepare for these appointments. You can also add your own appointments.

Messages

This screen has all the messages that the App has sent. These include reminders for what to do before your appointments, reminders to complete the educational lessons, congratulations when you complete tasks, and warnings if you have symptoms that may indicate problems.