Logotech-4-Good January Recipient Announced
Foundation to build homes for families of Medically Complex children.
Medically complex children have multiple significant medical conditions, many specialists they rely on to provide informed care, and are at higher risk of life-threatening events.
They are the kinds of patients LaDonna Carlisle, CEO, designed the SmartDocsApp to help. Begun three years ago as a Clinical Decision Support System, the software helps health care providers understand a patient's medical records and provide care using the best current data.
On one side, the platform educates and teaches hospitals and care providers about past and current treatment.
The other side helps parents and caregivers treat medically complex children at home. They also have features for the parents and siblings of MC children to assist them with emotional support.
"Siblings often assist in the care of the MC child and the application includes features that are community-related to offer additional services," she said.
In addition to the paid app, she and others founded the SmartDocs Foundation to aid in that treatment.
Logotech selected the foundation as the January 2022 Logotech-4-Good recipient. The organization will receive up to $500 in promotional products to support its work.
As Carlisle built the platform, she also started meeting with mothers of children with medically complex diagnoses.
"I thought, 'If I am going to go into something, I need to get on their level and understand what their needs are,'" she said.
Those meetings led to Carlisle founding the SmartDocs Foundation in July 2021. As part of the foundation's work, plans are to build housing for the families of children facing prolonged hospitalizations -- up to 8 months at a time or longer.
As she met with these moms, Carlisle discovered it is common for them to travel for care. While hospitalized, their families may stay in hotels for months.
Because of the lengths of these stays, other housing supports are often not available.
"As I got more into it I learned that in Jacksonville (Florida) children's hospitals there are people from all over the world and unfortunately they are put in hotel rooms," they might not be able to afford, she said.
The idea was born for a Smartdocs camp. The foundation seeks land and supplies for small homes families and caregivers can live in during lengthy stays.
Carlisle said she saw growing up how critical access to care is. She was raised in Alabama and saw how access to advanced care is scarce for rural residents.
Parents and caregivers of medically complicated children often find themselves in a similar situation, staying in cities far away from their homes. Appropriate facilities are not near their communities.
Carlisle does not have a medically complicated child herself. But she works with moms who do. "These kids have 21, 22, 23 different providers," she said. "It is heartbreaking."
She asked for customized USB drives as part of their fundraising work. They plan to give flash drives to medical providers and families.
"They allow us to download all of the information about our research and events electronically," she said.
Their first major fundraising event is set for March 2022.
The SmartDocsFoundation website is in development.
Learn more about and apply for the program at Logotech-4-Good.
