Case Study: East Tennessee Children’s Hospital improves parent communication and care coordination with DrFirst Backline

Secure Texting Helps Pediatric Hospital Communicate with Parents

East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, a 152-bed pediatric center in Knoxville, needed a better way to keep families informed during often long, distant hospital stays. Staff identified communication gaps across the NICU, radiology and ED—complicated further by older BYOD policies—and sought a secure, compliant method to update and reassure parents without disrupting clinical workflows.

The hospital deployed DrFirst’s Backline secure messaging for two-way NICU updates, one-way radiology completion alerts, and real-time ED collaboration. The tool eased parents’ anxiety, let caregivers step away for short breaks, improved family engagement and satisfaction, and sparked wider, voluntary adoption across departments; the hospital is updating BYOD policy and plans to expand Backline to its new surgery suite.

East Tennessee Children’s Hospital

Rick Simpson

Clinical Applications Manager