Why we built it
Dear parent,
My husband and I have a child with complex medical needs. Our home runs on medicines, feeds, appointments, and the nurses who help us care for our child.
For a long time all of it lived in a binder, on sticky notes, in group texts, and in our heads. Every shift change was a small act of faith. Did the last dose happen? What changed overnight? Who was told?
We looked for an app that fit. The ones we found were made for tracking a healthy baby, or for a hospital, or for somebody with time to sit at a desk. None were made for a kitchen at 6 a.m. with a syringe in one hand.
I am an engineer by training, so I did the one thing I knew how to do, and built the tool we couldn't find. Every dose, every note and every handoff carries a name and a time. When we don't know something, it says so.
Today BrightSift runs our home, and our nurses use it alongside us. It isn't trying to fix you or your child. It holds the day, so that once in a while you get to sit down.
Here is what we want it to become. First, something we can hand to the other families we know who live this way, at no cost to them. Then a helper that takes more of the paperwork off a tired parent: a shift told back in plain words, a page to carry into the next appointment, a first draft of the letter you have been putting off. And one day, a tool that the nurses and agencies who come into homes like ours can use alongside their own systems, so the family and the care team are finally reading from the same page.
We are not there yet. We would rather tell you that than pretend.
If your days look like ours, we would like you to have it.
Rashmi and Bhaskar
Two parents who needed this