Spark Communicator
Click on features to learn more!
One-stop app for education communication across the Division.
HIPAA-compliant
Uses your UCSF single-sign on credentials (ie. same login and password you use for UCSF email).
Faculty, fellows, APPs and residents (when on service) will all be on the app
Complete contact information built in—no more exchanging or finding numbers to text or joining a WhatsApp group.
CHANNELS
Channels is a public (by “public” we mean only within the UCSF cardiology community across all 3 sites) area with specific channels by topic area (eg. EP, Echo, HF, etc…) where anyone can post (eg. interesting cases, announcement, quizzes for the fellows etc….) and others can comment and engage in a discourse about the post.These can be tagged, favorited and easily followed. One can post to multiple channels (or just one) and monitor specific channels or posts for new activity. Think Twitter meets Slack meets WhatsApp purpose built for medical education.
Clickable URL support
Article citations & searches
Re-post to your Twitter feed
Use Cases
You are interested in expert opinions about how to manage a patient with a valve abnormality and an arrhythmia. So, you post a snippet about the patient and their echo image to the Valvular Heart Disease, Echo and EP channels asking what you would do. Discussion ensues and all (including the fellows) are able to learn from the interchange.
Dr. Fung comes across a very interesting ECG and wants to share it, especially so the fellows could see a classic example of an HCM ECG. He snaps a picture on his iphone, imports into the Spark Image Library (see below), de-identifies it within the app and posts it the Interesting ECG and the HCM channels.
Dr. Gerstenfeld has a library of ECGs with PVCs, the site of which is known from ablation. He posts an ECG every week in the EP Channel for the fellows to identify the location of the PVC.
Dr. Shannon Walker is seeing a patient at ZSFG with digoxin toxicity and has a concerning ECG she wants to share with colleagues and get feedback on. She posts the image to the Interesting ECG Channel.
Learn more about the Channels feature with these video tutorials. COMING SOON
IMAGES ARCHIVE
Images is a tool for managing images within Spark, keeping “medical” work-related images separate from your personal photos. You can import photos from (and export to) the camera, Apple Photos app, or any cloud service (Box, iCloud, DropBox, etc…). Once imported, you can rotate, annotate or mask over identifying information in order to mark the image as de-identified and ready for posting. You can also tag photos or put them in Collections to organize them. From within the app, you can attach de-identified images in any Channels post or in Team Chats (see below). Think Photos app, but purpose-built for medical images.
Video support
More robust editing features
Faster workflows for posting directly to Channels
Use Cases
You come across a classic anterior wall STEMI ECG that you want to keep in your library for teaching purposes. You snap a photo, tag it as STEMI and put in your Collection called Teaching ECGs.
You just finished doing your first emergent pericardiocentesis in the CICU on someone who was hypotensive. You snapped a picture of the art-line tracing before and after for comparison and wanted to share with your colleagues. After de-identification, you post to the CICU channel and brag about your first successful (and emergent) pericardiocentesis.
There is a great example of a myxoma on Echo that was posted to the Echo Channel and you want to use it in a talk. You save the image to your Images archive, tag it and export to your Box folder.
Learn more about the Image Archive feature with these video tutorials.
MESSAGES
Messages is a feature to allow private conversations between individuals, groups of individuals or pre-defined groups (eg. 1st year fellows) when there is no benefit for them to be public (as in Channels) or related to a functional team (as in Team Chats, see below). All of the faculty, fellows and APPs across all 3 sites in Cardiology are already there, so you don’t need to know their cell phone number. There is also an easy search function to find the right person. Think Apple Messages, but integrated and easy to find your Cardiology colleagues.
Clickable URL support
Use Cases
You want to see if your fellow colleague is free and able to meet for lunch.
You want to remind the first-year fellows that teaching session is cancelled today.
You have a copy of a textbook and you want to see if one of the first year fellows wants it.
You know your colleague had a rough day, so you want to send them a joke to cheer them up.
Learn more about the Message feature with these video tutorials.
TEAM CHATS
Team Chats is a feature that lets users communicate within teams and across teams (including across campuses if needed) on patient care issues. Users can easily join or leave a team and each conversation is threaded. Once you rotate off service, you can easily leave a team. But you can stay on top of conversations you started or are interested in (starred chats) even after you leave a team. You can easily see who is on a team and when people join or leave a team in a conversation. You do not have to have one long intertwined set of conversations, because each conversation is threaded and its own chat within a team. Easily communicate between or among teams about shared patients or transfers. You don’t need to look to see who to message, but you just message the team(s) you want in an easy to find interface. You can even add images from your image library. Think Microsoft Teams, but without having to sift through lengthy messages and keeping Team Members to those that are active.
Integration with Amion to auto-join teams when on call
Video support
Clickable URL support
Post a Team Chat to Channels
Add an individual or other Team to an ongoing conversation
Use Cases
You are on the CCU service at ZSFGH and you have a patient you want to send to UCSF Health for an ICD implant. From Team Chats, you start a Team Chat with ZSFG and let the EP service know about the patient.
You are on the inpatient service and you have a patient who needs a cath urgently. You start a Team Chat with the Interventional Team and your Team (Cards A) about the patient.
You are on the EP service, and you saw Mr. T on the Cardiology inpatient service (Cards A). You want to let the Team know that you have scheduled a pacemaker for tomorrow, so you send a Team Chat to Cards A and EP teams.
You are attending on the CICU and you want to let the APPs, Fellow and Residents know that you are going to round on 6 ICU in 5 minutes.
You are an interventional faculty at the VA and were on call last night. You wanted to let the Interventional Team know that you cathed a patient urgently overnight and they need to keep an eye on them in the morning to see they need to go back to the lab. You send a Teams Chat to the Interventional Team. In the morning you leave the Interventional Team, but the message is there for the new team to see. You can monitor the conversation since you started the Team Chat.
Learn more about the Team Chats feature with these video tutorials.
...and MORE
More features are available by clicking on the 3 dots to the right.
Invite other UCSF Cardiology team members to the app (such as residents or anyone with a UCSF SSO)
Contacts within Spark to call others or message them,
Profile to edit your picture and your other information in the app
Resources to provide in app access to MyAccess, Amion, Haiku and the Cardiology Wiki
Robust management of alerts and notifications
Vacation mode
Call schedule pulled from Amion
Pubmed search with article access (via UCSF library)
Use Cases
You want to invite the resident and medical student who just rotated onto the CICU service so that they can communicate across teams and monitor teaching in the Channels.
You need to speak to Dr. Olgin urgently about his patient, so you use Contacts to directly dial his phone.
Learn more about these feature with these video tutorials.
