Pediatric palliative podcasting as a tool to reach families

Pediatric palliative podcasting as a tool to reach families

Moore D; Bills O

Pediatrics

2019

child; clinical article; conference abstract; female; follow up; human; male; organization; palliative therapy; season; social media; total quality management; touch

Podcasts have grown in popularity over the last several years. Pediatric Palliative Care services can use this medium of communication to reach families more effectively. Podcast use is determined by the schedule of parents rather than providers. This abstract will describe the process of creating a podcast, strategies for creating and releasing content, and how to follow up content once released. The past 10 years have seen rapid advancements in the affordability and quality of recording options. Many institutions have seen the value of media outreach directly to patients and are working to lower the obstacles to engaging through this medium. Our team looked into both the physical process of recording and the various ways to disseminate content. After evaluating options, we choose to record using a combination of personally-owned, portable recording equipment and a recently opened institutional facility equipped with recording tools. Looking at hosting services used by various organizations, we chose to follow the pattern of the Center for the Advancement of Palliative Care (CAPC) which uses a free, widely available site. Using this tool, we are able to post links to podcasts in the various social media formats used by our team. Our team chose to start with 5 episodes, which would be released all at once to start a ?season? of out podcast. We chose topics for our discussion based on our target audience, parents of children with Palliative Care needs, and the teams experience with parental questions and issues. Topics focused on fundamentals of Palliative Care and common questions parents ask such as, "How do I advocate for my child while in the hospital"?. The 2 hosts plan an outline for each of these discussions and then record an episode trying to touch on major points. The hosts create outlines detailed enough to be useful while preserving a sense of spontaneity. After the episode is recorded it is edited for length and flow. Our goal for the episodes was roughly 20-30 minutes. This is based on experts in the field who consider this a ?drive-time? length that listeners can commit to. Once podcasts are released into the community, we follow basic analytics including the number of listens, percent of listeners who complete the episode, location of listeners, and time of day episodes are played. This helps give us an idea of what is going well, what should be continued, and what should change. Feedback is also elicited from listeners for improvement and topics for future episodes. We feel that podcasts are an effective tool to reach families and will continue our program. Our future plans include more rigorous quality improvement methodology and finding opportunities for guest hosts, including parents.

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