For practices · Ohio pilot
A workflow with owners, hours, and a clock.
For OB practices, groups and health systems. NestWell gives your patients a defined twelve-week follow-through program and hands your staff a short list of items, each with a named owner, coverage hours and an acknowledgment target. Nothing is quietly “handled by the app”. When a person is needed, a person is named; when nobody answers, the patient is told to call.
In development. This page describes the program as it is being built for the pilot.
The staff workflow
Six queues. Each has an owner, coverage hours, a target, and a rule for when nobody answers.
Your staff do not watch a feed. Items land in a queue with a practice role as owner and a backup, a clock, and a written answer to the question “what happens if nobody picks this up”. Every cell below is configuration your practice sets; a role left empty is shown as not yet assigned, never hidden.
| Queue | What lands here | Owner (backup) | Coverage | Targets | If nobody answers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent | An urgent rule written by your clinical owner, a critical screening item, a tap on “I need help now”, or an emergency-lexicon match in free text | care coordinator(on-call clinician) | Set by the practice; shown to the patient | ack 30 mincontact attempted and outcome logged 2 h | Escalates to the backup at the acknowledgment target and is marked unowned at the backup’s target. Her screen switches to a locked item: we have not reached a nurse yet, do not wait for us, call this number now. |
| Needs review | A positive screen, a coping-difficulty answer, any free text, a therapy-style request, or a referral that reached a dead end | OB clinician(practice on-call clinician) | Set by the practice | same business day | Escalates, then unowned; counted as a missed escalation in the pilot report. Her closing statement already told her when it would be read, and to call if she has not heard by then. |
| Follow-through | A referral, a planned visit, a callback request, or a barrier she reported: a ride, a phone, time off | care coordinator | Practice hours | 3 business days | Ages visibly and appears on the weekly unresolved list until it is closed with an outcome. |
| Unreached | Two consecutive unopened check-ins while she has not paused the program herself | care coordinator | Practice hours | set by the practiceshorter when an open clinical item exists | Outreach attempts are logged; no further automated reminders are sent. A pause she chose is never treated as going quiet. |
| Sensitive review | A sensitive status set by staff or by the patient: a loss, a NICU stay, a change in how she wants to be contacted | clinician | Set by the practice | a logged human contact within 7 daysafter “not for now”; then escalates like needs review | Content suppression is automatic and does not wait for review: nothing about the baby, feeding or milestones goes out. |
| Summaries to review | The week-9 draft, the week-12 transition summary, or a summary requested on demand | OB clinician | Practice hours | set by the practice | Stays a draft, listed by owner. Nothing enters the chart without a person signing it. |
When nobody answers, the patient is told to call
Outside coverage, while an item is escalated, or while it is unowned, she sees a locked message: we have not been able to reach a nurse yet; do not wait for us; call this number now, followed by the practice’s approved emergency instruction. She is never shown a waiting message, and the program is built so that no model can reword that text.
Timers run on the clock you choose
By default targets run on the wall clock, so an item created at 7 p.m. counts toward unowned unless your configuration says timers pause outside coverage hours. The queue sheet states which basis is in force. Either way, the patient’s screen reflects the truth of it.
What the practice controls
Wording, thresholds, rules, owners, hours. Visible, versioned, and approved by your clinical owner.
NestWell ships with placeholders, not opinions. Every patient-facing sentence and every routing decision is practice configuration. NestWell’s clinical safety owner reviews the defaults, and your named clinical owner approves them for your patients before a patient sees them.
Check-in wording
Every sentence a patient reads
The check-in items, the care-plan explanations, the closing statement, the transition page, in each language you offer. Nothing reaches a patient that your clinical owner has not approved.
approved by: clinical owner · versionedScreening instrument and thresholds
Your instrument, your cut-offs
The EPDS or the PHQ-9 as the primary instrument, the GAD-7 optional, at day 14 and again at week 6 if you choose. Thresholds and routing carry the name of the clinician who set them; a changed threshold is flagged until confirmed.
thresholds confirmed by: named clinicianEscalation rules
Which answers create which items
The urgent list, the critical items, whether free text is scanned for emergency terms or read by a clinician the same day. Each rule has an ID and a version, and every time it fires is logged. The emergency instruction itself is locked text.
rule id · version · shown · acknowledged · outcomeOwners and backups
A practice role for every queue
Coordinator, on-call clinician, OB clinician; the employer of each role is visible. An unfilled role is shown as not yet assigned rather than defaulting to “the app”.
owner_role · backup_role · employerCoverage hours and timer basis
When someone is there, and how the clock runs
Coverage hours per queue, shown to the patient. Whether targets run on the wall clock or pause outside coverage. Setting urgent coverage to none is allowed, and it shows as none, with a warning.
coverage_hours · timer_basis: wall | coverageSharing defaults
Who sees a screen result
What a positive screen shares and with whom, within what the patient chose. She can withhold results; the practice then sees “screen completed, sharing withheld”, and the critical safety item follows a policy your clinical owner sets.
sharing: clinician and coordinator | clinician | nobody yetStaff minutes
Staff time is a measured quantity, not a promise.
We do not claim that NestWell reduces your staff’s workload. Reduced workload is a goal we will measure in the pilot, and the measurement is built in from the start.
Every logged action carries minutes: a callback, a chart review, an outreach attempt, a summary signed. The budget owner’s view shows minutes per enrolled patient as a median and a top decile, the practice’s own setup minutes, and after-hours coverage as a separate line, beside a calculator you fill in yourself with your loaded rate, overhead and coverage costs.
There is no revenue projection in it. If a queue’s coverage is set to none, the calculator shows zero for that line and a warning, because a queue nobody covers is not free; it is a pause condition for the pilot.
- Reported: minutes per enrolled patient, median and top decile
- Reported: practice setup minutes, recorded by your administrator
- Reported: after-hours coverage, as hours per week × on-call rate or a flat monthly cost, entered by you
- Never reported: a saving we have not measured
One enrolled episode, line by line
day 3Barrier item reviewed; transport resource sent6 min
day 7Callback, requested at check-in12 min
day 14Positive screen: clinician assessment and referral9 min
day 21Human contact confirmed4 min
week 6Referral followed up; appointment kept8 min
week 9Summary reviewed and signed7 min
totalStaff minutes, this episode46 min
Illustrative synthetic episode, shown to explain what is counted. It is not a result, an average, or a forecast. Your pilot report will show your practice’s own median and top decile.
Fits with the tools you already have
We ask. We do not claim.
Most practices already have a patient portal, phone protocols, and sometimes a maternity program through a health plan. We will not tell you NestWell connects to any of them until it does.
In a pilot, NestWell runs beside your existing tools. The clinician summary reaches you through a channel we agree in writing before the pilot starts. What we want to learn in the initial conversation is what remains unresolved after the tools you have, so the pilot measures that and not something you already do well.
What we ask in the initial conversation
- Who owns the postpartum gap at your practice today?
- Which tools do you use or have you evaluated, and what remains unresolved after them?
- Who reads a same-day note at 4 p.m. on a Friday, and who answers at 7 p.m.?
- Who would pay, from which budget, and would they discuss a paid pilot?
Your answers go into the pilot findings, including “we already have this via ___”. If the honest answer is that you do, we would rather know before either of us spends a pilot cycle on it.
How a pilot is structured
One practice. Twelve weeks per patient. A price you can see, and limits you can hold us to.
Enrollment starts in small batches so the queues are staffed before they are full. Each patient is followed for twelve weeks, so preparation plus a complete cohort takes longer than a ninety-day project. We say so up front.
Two price structures
- A fixed pilot fee for a defined episode count, or
- A per-enrolled-episode price, counted at enrollment
- Either comes with a scope sheet: maximum staff-support minutes per episode, coverage hours, episode count
- No revenue is projected for the practice; the calculator is yours to fill in
What stays with the practice
- All clinical services: assessment, treatment, after-hours coverage, referrals
- Your named clinical owner’s approval of every rule and sentence for your patients
- Your patients’ care; NestWell is connected to your practice, not in place of it
- The decision to pause: an unowned urgent queue or a referral with no capacity stops enrollment
Goals we will measure
- Completion of planned postpartum visits, every eligible patient in the denominator
- Time from a positive screen to clinician assessment, and to a kept appointment
- Staff minutes per enrolled patient, median and top decile
- Escalations acknowledged inside target, and escalations missed
- Patient-reported usefulness at week 6 and week 12
- Dropout, and differences by language, insurance and access barriers
These are goals until measured. There are no NestWell outcomes to cite today, and we will not invent any.
What we ask of a partner
Four things, before the pilot agreement is written.
A pilot without these is a demo. Each one exists so the pilot can answer a question honestly, including the question of whether NestWell is worth paying for.
-
A named clinical owner
An OB clinician at your practice who approves the check-in wording, the screening instrument and thresholds, and the escalation rules, and who owns the needs-review queue. The rules carry that clinician’s name.
owns: wording · thresholds · escalation · needs review -
A budget owner
The person who can say yes to a fixed pilot fee or a per-episode price, in the same conversation as the clinical owner. A referral channel and a payer are different people, and we need both in the room.
answers: would you pay, from which budget, at which structure -
A referral partner
A mental-health resource with capacity, that accepts the insurance your patients carry and will confirm when an appointment is kept. A screen that leads nowhere is a pause condition, not a feature.
confirms: scheduled · kept · coverage accepted -
A baseline
Your current postpartum visit completion, counting every eligible patient, and how a positive screen is followed up today. Without it the pilot cannot show a change, and we will not claim one.
visit completion · screen follow-up · staff minutes today
Questions practices ask
Straight answers, including the ones that are “not yet”.
Does NestWell provide clinical care?
No. NestWell is a defined postpartum follow-through program connected to your practice. Assessment, treatment, after-hours coverage and referrals are clinical services that stay with the practice and its partners. The program is set up so that each of those has a named owner, a clock, and a logged outcome.
What does the AI do, and what does it never do?
AI explains approved material and drafts summaries for a clinician to review. It also groups the questions a patient saved for her visit, with her own words kept alongside. It never decides what is urgent, interprets a screening result, reassures a patient, holds a therapy-style conversation, or changes the emergency instruction. Every call it makes is logged with the approved source it drew from.
Who answers at 3 a.m.?
Whoever your after-hours arrangement names, and the patient is shown that arrangement in plain words. If the urgent queue has no coverage at that hour, her screen says so and tells her to call the practice’s after-hours number or to follow the practice’s approved emergency instruction. She is never shown a waiting message. Part of the pilot is finding out what your after-hours coverage costs today and whether it is answered.
What happens when a queue has no owner or no capacity?
The role shows as not yet assigned in the configuration, the item escalates on schedule and is marked unowned, and the pilot report counts it as a missed escalation. An unowned urgent queue, or a referral partner with no capacity, is a condition to pause enrollment, not something the program works around quietly.
Which patients are eligible, and who enrolls them?
Your practice defines eligibility and enrolls patients, late in pregnancy or before discharge; a nurse can also enroll a patient in person later. Every eligible patient is counted in the denominator, including those who were not offered the program and those who declined, so completion rates cannot be flattered by leaving people out.
What changes after a pregnancy loss?
Day 0 is the day of birth, including a stillbirth. When a sensitive status is set, by staff or by the patient herself, every infant, feeding, milestone and celebration item is suppressed immediately, without waiting for review. She is asked once how she wants to be addressed and how often to be contacted, including “not for now”, which pauses check-ins and creates a commitment for a named person to call within seven days. Nothing resumes automatically.
Does it work in Spanish or other languages?
A patient can be enrolled in a language once its safety-critical content, the emergency instruction and the check-in items among it, has been approved by your clinical owner in that language. Until then she is recorded as not offered, with the reason, she still counts in the denominator, and an outreach item for a person to handle is created, flagged “interpreter or Spanish-speaking staff needed”. We would rather block enrollment than send an unapproved sentence.
How long does a pilot take?
Preparation covers scope, privacy and contracting, clinical review of every rule and sentence, response coverage, referral capacity and a baseline. Then enrollment in small batches, with each patient followed for twelve weeks. With rolling enrollment, a complete cohort generally takes longer than a single ninety-day project, and the timeline in the agreement says so.
What does it cost?
A fixed pilot fee for a defined episode count, or a per-enrolled-episode price, each with a scope sheet that sets support limits: maximum staff-support minutes per episode, coverage hours, and episode count. Clinical services are arranged separately by the practice. The figures are in the pilot agreement, not on this page, because they depend on the scope you choose.
What happens to patient data?
Minimal collection, no advertising trackers, and no model training on patient data by default. Retention, deletion, record access, and the sharing of mental-health information are written into the pilot agreement, and the legal obligations that follow from the operating relationship are reviewed with counsel as part of pilot preparation. We make no privacy claim on this site beyond that; the site itself sets no cookies and runs no trackers.
Next step
Bring your clinical owner and your budget owner. We will bring the queue sheet.
A thirty-minute conversation, with the four questions above and a priced scope sheet. Please do not include health information in the form.