Seizure Action Plan

A Seizure Management Application to Hosting Patient-Specific Seizure Action Plans for Rapid and Effective Care

Partner

BC Children’s Hospital Division of Neurology

The Digital Lab

Type of work

Digital Health App

technology
Mobile Apps
Overview

Seizure Action Plans are Critical to Seizure Care

The Digital Lab and BC Children’s Hospital Division of Neurology developed the Seizure Action Plan (SAP) application. Approximately 1 in 100 people in Canada, many being children, live with epilepsy which can cause seizures. Seizures occur because of altered brain activity and cause patients to lose consciousness and move uncontrollably. When patients experience seizures they are provided a physical document of their patient-specific seizure action plan developed by their neurology team to guide treatment of subsequent seizures. While following these plans to seizure care, as the action plans are physical documents it is common for them not to be accessible. To ensure lifesaving care can be provided to patients, the Seizure Action Plan application was developed.

Research & Design

Consultation with Key Stakeholders to Ensure Efficacy

To ensure the SAP application was effective the Digital Lab partnered with the BC Children’s Hospital division of neurology. Neurologists were consulted in the development of the platform to ensure that the application had the necessary features to host patient seizure action plans. As seizure care involves numerous caregivers, nurses, first responders and patients were consulted in the user-testing phase of the application development to ensure that the application met the needs of prospective users and had the necessary functions. 

This application can drastically improve seizure care for patients as it allows patients and their families along with medical care teams to view and update personalized seizure action plans. Furthermore, it greatly increases the accessibility of the patient's seizure action plan as the application allows it to be shared with other critical caretakers of the child, such as their school. This ensures that if a seizure occurs, more people are able to safely care for the child increasing the safety of the environment for the child. By creating a streamlined platform for communication between families and clinical care teams, the SAP application can improve seizure care and limit gaps in treatment plan changes.

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Impact

Improved Seizure Care for Pediatric Patients

The SAP application has changed seizure care for clinicians and patients. It allows clinicians to create and update each patient's unique seizure action plans improving treatment and response times. The application safely stores and manages patients seizure action plans and optimizes the distribution of the plan to the child’s school and care providers. This addresses previous limitations of plan accessibility which can empower both caregivers and patients. Further, the application allows for plans to be rapidly updated with edits being tracked with timestamps to ensure that constantly evolving care plans are up-to-date. This tool has greatly improved the quality of care that can be provided, improving patient outcomes.