everyStory® for Hospice & Palliative Care

One of the fun things (and there are many) of attending the Consumers Electronics Show (CES) is coming across products where the founders have solved a simple problem for hospice and palliative care that they were unaware of. I had the chance to meet up with the representatives for the company everyStory® www.everystory.us while at the show this past week in Las Vegas and as they described their application as a story-sharing application, I knew just how I would recommend this product.

everyStory® www.everystory.us lets you put a story together with pictures. You download the pictures in sets as you wish, and then you are able to attach a story that you record with each picture. Even with the first attempt at using the service, the interface is clean and simple. And it accomplishes its goal. I am using it for a long-standing genealogy project: you know the drill — ‘who the hell is this dead relative’? Today, I plan to sit down with my mother to go through some pictures and see where it takes us in real time.

everyStory® www.everystory.us is perfect for hospice and palliative care! In fact, the program was created by the founder while hospitalized with a diagnosis of colon cancer. David Keene recalls:

“Three years ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer. As I lay in my hospital bed, I feared that my son wouldn’t remember the sound of my voice. I needed something to bridge the gap between when I could tell him everything I wanted him to hear and when he could really ‘hear’ it. I found some applications that let me record audio, and some that let me record audio over images, but what I really wanted was a platform that would let me record dozens of hours of audio over hundreds of photos in a natural way and store it all securely.”

This free (currently) application (IOS, Android, and the Web) is a perfect interface for hospice workers to share with their clients and allow them to reminisce and record information for their loved ones. My wife and I did this for my father Marco with the old fashioned video and interview scene. I even laughed when he said: “Oh, this is the part I get to reflect before I die!” Now, you can record their memories with individual pictures and create an oral book with them. Having their descriptions then transcribed and printed along with the pictures would be a priceless gift for generations to follow.

I cannot wait to work with the program so that I can offer some suggestions for improvement. It is free to download from the application stores currently. This program should be in the armamentarium of every hospice employee.

This is an independent review of an existing product. I have no financial interest the company everyStory®.

Scott Matthew Bolhack, MD, MBA, CMD, CWS, FACP, FAAP