Anxiety and fear often arise from the uncertainty of not knowing. As of today the information available for kids prior the first hospital visit is very limited and usually presented in a boring manner. This results in lack of knowledge about the forestanding hospital encounter. On top of this, the insecurity from arriving at an unfamiliar hospital with a physical appearance far from the kid’s daily environment further increase the risk of uncomfort during the first 10 minutes at the hospital.
Hospital Buddy is a solution which binds together the kids experience within the health care system from day 1, by letting any child digitize their existing and trusted teddy, doll, action man or any other toy, to act as their knowing guide throughout the course.
As soon as the hospital appointment has been made, let it be digitally or though one’s medical practitioner, the child will receive a physical tag that can be put onto their favorite toy. This will give them access to a digital platform in which their beloved toy can easily be 3D scanned and transformed into an avatar using a smartphone or tablet. The child can then explore the planned procedure, play games with their avatar and personalize their digital universe. Within this universe, certain fun items can only be unlocked by the forthcoming hospital visit, thereby creating a positive excitement for the visit itself. The digital platform shall be tailored towards specific age groups, so that the interface and activities offered will differ between that offered to a child at the age of 4 and 9 for example.
Upon arrival at the hospital, the personal tag will be detected and the digital avatar will explain the course of the day on a large welcome screen. This creates comfort by taking use of a trusted relationship. Thereafter the family will be guided to the waiting section, where they will face an area allocated specifically for them which display the custom digital universe which the child has created from home. This is simply done by loading the given theme onto digital screens surrounding each area, whenever a new family arrives. This will ensure that the physical environment becomes more familiar, and that the child will experience that they have an ability to affect the course - thereby bridging the gap from home to hospital.
An example of how the implementation of Hospital Buddy would unfold has been illustrated and explained on the attached storyboard that walks through the adventure of a boy named Anton and his brave rabbit Longear.
Looking past the first 10 minutes, the digital universe should be extended to the child’s hospital room if they are to spend longer time at the hospital. The child can then interact with and personalize the surroundings during their stay. We imagine the walls of each room to be large screens with content that can be changed by the flick of a finger.
The solution can be implemented by any experienced digital development house:
- The use of a small geo tags that can be scanned is a standard component, often in the form of bluetooth low energy beacons.
- The ability to turn physical objects into digital 3D figures simply by taking pictures with a smartphone is already freely available from apps such as 123Dcatch. The next step of transforming 3D renderings into a moving avatar is feasible as of now, but to our knowledge no plug-and-play solution currently exist.
- Enabling the avatar to answer common questions related to the child’s hospital visit can be built on a well-known “chat-bot” principle along with continuous improvements through machine learning.
