Luca Goodwin, 11, was born with a congenital heart defect and had to undergo three rounds of open-heart surgery, with the first happening when he was 4 days old.<\/p>\n
The new app is designed for people to view their health information, such as prior allergies to medication, summaries of reports done by specialists, previous illnesses or their vaccination history, in one place.<\/p>\n
Goodwin and Green are hoping their new app will help Kiwis have better control of their own health information. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n
Luca experienced a post-operative stroke that led to a number of neurological consequences for him, including developing a rare childhood sleep epilepsy syndrome.<\/p>\n
In a New York hospital in 2024, Goodwin was told the left side of Luca\u2019s brain had to be disconnected to save his life. The hemispherectomy operation prevents seizures that don\u2019t respond to medication.<\/p>\n
During this time, Goodwin\u2019s nightmare scenario about Luca\u2019s medical history led to her thinking of the idea for the app.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens to him if something happens to me? If I\u2019m not there, even my husband couldn\u2019t remember or know all the intricacies of his care like I do,\u201d Goodwin says.<\/p>\n
She is devoted to Luca and lived in a rehab hospital with him in New Jersey for three months to help him recover, eventually returning with the family to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Luca Goodwin with mum Arlene: “He’s too important to me.”<\/p>\n
When Luca had a seizure on a holiday in Queenstown, despite the urgency of the situation, hospital staff were delayed by having to ask Goodwin for the phone number of a specialist to access vital medical records.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I think I\u2019ve learned to shut down. You know, I get very robotic when the pressure gets really high, I kind of compartmentalise and become very much one foot in front of the other, because if I am not on my game, who\u2019s going to look after him?\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodwin says the app can help parents who are divorced and co-parenting, or larger families, because of a feature that enables people to link their profiles and share health information.<\/p>\n
Moving between two health systems, the United States and New Zealand, and being shuffled through endless specialist appointments exposed her to the problem of a lack of information sharing between GPs, specialists and hospitals. For the patient, Goodwin saw the outcome of this inefficiency was adverse care.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very intolerant. I\u2019m exceptionally intolerant … I think he\u2019s too important to me. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of times I have challenged a doctor in an emergency room before giving a medication or making a diagnosis, I can\u2019t even count. It\u2019s because there\u2019s no one sitting holistically on top of it all, the specialists and doctors are all in their silos and different fields.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodwin says parts of her journey with Luca have been “beyond terrifying” and she wants to save other parents from the same pain. Photo \/ Anna Heath.<\/p>\n
Goodwin developed the app alongside her business partner Susan Green. They share decades of friendship and similar backgrounds in law and banking but have committed themselves to building the app as their fulltime jobs for the past three years.<\/p>\n
The pair have been helped by two offshore tech-experts. Together the group of four have invested heavily in getting the app to its launch date but will have to raise further capital for the next stage of development.<\/p>\n
They want every Kiwi to be able to access and control their own medical information and avoid falling through the cracks of the health system.<\/p>\n