Health Volunteers App

1. Our Volunteers of Health application wants to solve the following problems: 

A. High hospital costs. 

B. Sick without the benefits of spiritual accompaniment 

C. Loss of half the time of health volunteers 

2. The function of Health Volunteer App is to facilitate the access of a patient to a health volunteer, so that he receives the benefits of spiritual accompaniment (in addition to managing and optimizing the time of both). At present, it doesn't exist in our market to similar app or instrument.

 According to the World Health Organization, spiritual accompaniment is an important part of palliative care, it improves the quality of life of the patient and his environment, and reduces hospitalization costs. 
The foregoing is also supported by studies for the American Cancer Society.

Each year an estimated 40 million people are in need of palliative care, 78% of whom live in low- and middle-income countries.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health spending has grown faster than the rest of the world economy, representing 10% of world GDP. 51% of these expenses are assumed by governments, while 35% are assumed directly by patients. As a result of this, every year 100 million people are immersed in extreme poverty.

Each year, an estimated 40 million people need palliative care, 78% of whom live in low and middle income countries.
 In Chile, the implementation of health programs has been hampered by:
• Lack of public policies that recognize palliative care for patients with terminal illnesses.
• Lack of resources to establish timely responses for patients.

The Pastoral Health Application is intended to provide spiritual assistance and thus help reduce the costs of public health organizations in Chile.
The study by Tracy Balboni, for the American Cancer Society, concluded: Cancer patients who report that their spiritual needs are not well supported by the health care team, have higher costs of EOL (+ 50% approx.).

Beneficiaries: patients, people who face high levels of stress, anxiety and great emotional vulnerability, in addition to physical pain and loss of Independence and autonomy. By making it easier for them to contact and receive spiritual assistance. It improves their quality of life.

In addition, patients deregistered have no transfer to their home, prolonged their hospitalization unnecessarily.  The app also gives a solution for this.

Users: health volunteers, empathetic and supportive people who donate part of their time. Their motivations can be religious or humanitarian. The App will allow them to manage their time more. Today they lose 50% of their time looking for the patient.

In Chile, according to the cadastre of the Health Pastoral Commission 2017, there are 7,800 volunteers.

We are currently conducting a course to train 60 new health volunteers. In addition to preparing visits to hospitals with university students. All this together with the National Director of Pastoral of Chile, the Italian doctor and priest Pietro Magliozzi, this project "Application of health volunteering" won the first place of the Pastoral Social Contest of the Catholic University of Chile in 2018.

Our solution is an application that links patients with health volunteers to receive the benefits of spiritual benefit. It is an application that has elements of gamification to motivate the volunteer in his self-imposed goals. Way of the beneficiary: A patient (or a member of their family) downloads the application to request the accompaniment service, completes the patient's profile or their spiritual file, indicating their name, age, illness, hobbies, religion and if it requires accompaniment of a religious nature or not. Finally it is geolocated and the request is sent to the nearest and available volunteer. If the volunteer accepts the request, the patient receives confirmation of the day and time it will be visited. In turn, the volunteer will receive the name and location of the patient along with their spiritual file to prepare their first visit. Once the visit is made, the volunteer will inform you and access a personal report of your volunteer hours and how much is needed to reach your personal goal. You will also receive a report of the hours of the group to which it belongs. The fulfillment of the group goal will provide additional benefits to the patients visited (example: music therapy session), financed by the advertiser companies in the application. In addition, for those who have not taken the course of health volunteers and have less time, there is the possibility of volunteering to transfer patients, for which they must also enter all their data in their profile.

Also, for those who have not done the course of health volunteers and have less time there is the possibility of volunteering to transfer patients, for which they must also enter all their data in their profile. 

A health volunteer in Chile must pass a course of approximate 30 hours. This course is certified by the Health Pastoral Commission, who provides the app download code to the volunteer (authorization). Those who have not taken the course of health volunteers, there is the possibility of registering as a volunteer in transferring patients from the hospital to their home. The information provided by the patient or his family member is confidential and of exclusive use to facilitate the accompaniment of patients. The volunteer must sign a confidentiality agreement.

Our solution introduces technology for smartphones, whose use is very widespread, but is not used for the purpose we propose. The patient or his family member requests "directly" the spiritual accompaniment service without dependencies of third parties. 

Currently this service of spiritual accompaniment is not well organized in the hospitals, which means a loss of almost 50% of the time of the volunteers. 

This tool manages the volunteer's time but also allows the patient to organize their time and prepare themselves internally before the volunteer's visit.  In addition, the "patient's spiritual record" allows the volunteer to anticipate the encounter with the patient and provide a more personalized service according to the interests of the patient, religion, etc. On the other hand, the patient receives a photo and data from the volunteers to reduce the "initial uncertainty between patient and volunteer". 

All the above thought to achieve the creation of a "significant link" between both, that the patient feels accompanied and supported and access to a better quality of life in the disease. It is important to bear in mind that in our internal market there is no application as what we propose, so there is no direct competitor.

Our solution is a new application (software) of an existing technology. This taking advantage of the high penetration of the internet through mobile devices. According to the figures of SUBTEL 2019, 87% of households in Chile have Internet. The download of the application is facilitated by a QR code, this application allows the patient (seasonal user of the application) to geolocate and create a profile in his spiritual archive. On the other hand, thinking about creating a motivating aspect for the volunteer (permanent user), the application has elements of gamification that inform the progress of the volunteer hours to achieve its self-imposed objective and the objective in hours at the level of the volunteer group. that belongs . Each group of volunteers has an administrator with the ability to enter or remove a volunteer from their group in the application.  Currently, the volunteer administrator in a hospital is the one with the most volunteer time, the application will facilitate the management procedures by sending a performance report of each volunteer.

It is an app given that Chile has a high internet penetration, over 87% of households have Internet access and this access is mostly through mobile devices (SUBTEL 2019). The WHO defines spiritual accompaniment as part of palliative care that reduces unnecessary hospitalizations and improves the quality of the patient and his environment. Likewise, the study conducted by Dr. Balboni for The American Cancer Society endorses that a patient who has received spiritual assistance reduces up to 50% the End of Life (EOL) hospital expenses. 

 Finally, during 2018 August and December 2018, we conducted more than 100 interviews with: patients, their families, doctors, nurses, health volunteers and chaplains, which allowed us to detect their needs in the field.

Currently in Chile we have 7,200 health volunteers who lose approximately 50% of their time in the corridors of hospitals looking for the palliative patient that requires spiritual accompaniment. According to figures from the Scientific Society of Palliative Care, Chile has 27,000 patients who are beneficiaries of palliative care and it is estimated that this number will triple in the Congress approved the "palliative care law" that will extend this benefit to non-cancer patients (Ministry of Health) so it is essential to maximize volunteer time and sensitize the community to increase the number of health volunteers.

GOAL 2019: Have an MVP that can be tested in hospitals. Train 80 new health volunteers.

 Goal 2020: Have financing to develop the app. To train 100 new volunteers of health (+ 20%), this year we are training 60 volunteers, with much enthusiasm and very little diffusion. 20% of hospitals in Chile offer the app to their patients. 10% of palliative patients download the app 40% of health volunteers discard the app.  

Goal 2025: 100% of hospitals in Chile, the discharge of the application to their patients is presented. Increase the number of volunteers by 20%. 90% of Health Volunteers download the application. 50% of patients download the application for spiritual accompaniment.

The biggest barrier is the financial barrier to develop the app.
The second barrier will be the diffusion of this accompaniment service in the admission of hospitals.
Another cultural barrier is that atheist patients associate spiritual accompaniment as an exclusively religious service.

We are going to apply for different funds this year that will allow us to do an MVP to test in hospitals and having this validated it will be easier to get resources to develop an app. For the second barrier it is necessary to create an alliance with the Ministry of Health since spiritual accompaniment is defined as a human right by the WHO Faced with the cultural barrier of associating spiritual accompaniment as something purely religious, a good dissemination campaign must be carried out, supported by the work done by volunteers in hospitals.

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2 people part time in the app, plus a team of 8 people with whom we prepare courses for health volunteers and we want to create a foundation

We are working on forming a foundation that takes charge of palliative care and also training health volunteers to professionalize this work.  It is a team formed by doctors, nurses, religious and volunteers with more than 20 years assisting patients in different countries.  

Working in the health ministry has allowed us to have a comprehensive vision of the human being, such as defining WHO, which addresses all human dimensions: corporal, psycho-social and spiritual.  

All this journey has allowed us to propose a solution that takes care of the problem that we consider central: "The loneliness" that in recent years has become an epidemic that aggravates any disease.

Ministry of Health of the Chilean Episcopal Conference.
We are working with a team of 8 people to train and professionalize health volunteering and disseminate this work.

Key alliances: different religions, volunteer networks, hospitals, Ministry of Health 

• Provider: Software developer.

 • Key activities 

• Cadastre of volunteers and health centers to determine supply and demand. • MVP, Application Development, Beta. •            

 Impact evaluation. • Key resources: Volunteers, MVP, Beta, final version of the application.  Issue: • High hospitalization costs. • Many sick people are alone without receiving the benefits of spiritual accompaniment (reduces hospitalization) • 50% of the volunteers' time is lost in the location of the need. 

Purpose: "REDUCE UNNECESSARY HOSPITALIZATION IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF PATIENTS" 

Value proposal: Facilitates a patient's access to a health volunteer and manages their labor. Relationship with the beneficiary patient: seasonal user. Customized and coordinated.

Relationship with Users / volunteers: Permanent user. It compromises, optimizes and manages its work. Channels with patients and volunteers: Hospitals, Parishes, social network. Beneficiary Segment: Critical patients, their relatives, hospital staff. 

Customer Segment: Hospitals Cost structure Development of APP and Landing Page, USD 70,000 MVP USD 7,500 Brand design "APP Health Volunteer", USD 15,500 Promotion USD 7,000.     TOTAL USD 100,000

Impact Application download numbers (patients and volunteers). Percentages of retention of applications. Number of patients accompanied. Accompaniment of generated hours. Patient satisfaction index. Financial sustainability: Hospital subscription, collaborating companies pay for advertising in the application, donations.

Financial Sustainability: Hospital Subscription, collaborating companies pay for Advertising in the application, Donations and sale of indicators of hospital care satisfaction surveys for patients who download the application.

As a first step we need technological advice and collect USD 7500 to be able to generate an MPV of Health Volunteer App and test its functionalities in different hospitals in Chile. Once we have an MPV, it will be easier to apply to other subsidies for the development of the application.

On the other hand we hope that SOLVE will help us spread and scale this solution outside of Chile and that it is a global problem that has been aggravated by the increase in life expectancy and the emergence of chronic diseases.

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Partner with universities to encourage young people to participate in health volunteering. That they may know the heroism with which, day after day, many people have become a source of humanity and companionship for the sick who feel alone.  

Associate with hospitals to offer this service of spiritual accompaniment to their patients.  Partner with various churches and institutions that prepare health volunteers to offer benefits for application volunteers.  

Currently in Chile we are associated with Camillian missionaries who provide spiritual assistance to patients in situations of extreme poverty and abandoned elderly people. In addition to these missionaries we are conducting a training course for volunteers of inter-religious health. What will allow us to address the needs of a greater number of palliative patients and spread the app in the countries that these missionaries are.

The money from this award will be used to develop the application, its brand and a dissemination plan in the community to incorporate new health volunteers.

The money from this award will be used to develop the application, its brand and a dissemination plan in the community to incorporate new health volunteers.

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If we consider the loneliness of the sick in hospitals. We will understand that they are more segregated human beings of modern society, between their own family and in their own country.

The money from this award will be used to develop the app, its brand and a community outreach plan to incorporate new health volunteers.

The money from this award will be used to develop the application, its brand and a dissemination plan in the community to incorporate new health volunteers.

The money from this award will be used to develop the application, its brand and a dissemination plan in the community to incorporate new health volunteers.

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