Charlotte Helvie, a pediatrician at Memorial Hospital, envisions improving connectivity for families while minimizing care team burn out.
The Challenge
Recognizing its potential impact on pediatric care team burnout and worker shortages, Charlotte Helve is developing the Pediatric Well-Care Companion—a mobile application that leverages virtual chat functionality to supplement annual wellness visits.
The Solution
As a participant in MaineHealth Innovation’s Cohort, Charlotte refined the Pediatric Well-Care Companion app, developing efficient collection and analysis of essential health risk information for families. Through this approach, Charlotte aims to:
- Improve health literacy
- Connect families with resources
- Enhance long-term health outcomes
- Alleviate the time burden on care team members
Pilot testing is currently underway thanks to support from the MaineHealth Innovation Ignite Fund, WEX, and the MaineHealth IT team. Charlotte intends to make this application available to pediatric patients within the MaineHealth system.
Charlotte Helvie, MD, Pediatrician Memorial Hospital, NH
Next Steps
Charlotte is actively exploring additional avenues for development, while working towards a pilot. She aspires to create an application that can be widely accessible to primary care providers throughout the MaineHealth system, and eventually, to colleagues nationwide.
“A change to the way that we deliver preventive care is not something that I could have taken on single handedly. Yet, the Innovation Center has guided me as I lead a project which spans multiple departments – both within MaineHealth and in the Innovation community – and will one day, hopefully, have a positive impact on health care providers and patients alike.”
– Charlotte Helvie, MD
Collaborators
- Charlotte Helvie, MD, Pediatrician Memorial Hospital, New Hampshire
- Brian Youth, MD, Pediatric Residency Program Director, and Pediatric Lead for Medical Informatics, MaineHealth
- Elizabeth Mulcahy, DNP, FNP-C, Director of Telehealth, MaineHealth
- Ann Marie Hess, Clinical Informatics APP, MaineHealth
- Larry Burmingham, AVP Digital Experience, MaineHealth
Our Purpose
MaineHealth Innovation builds connections to drive diversity of thought, educates to produce creative problem-solvers and funds to accelerate ideas. By leveraging the ideas, insights and expertise of all care team members to develop novel solutions to our unmet care needs, we are working together so our communities are the healthiest in America.
