Reducing anxiety and tension in children undergoing medical treatment. For this purpose, Nicole Donkel (paediatric nurse at the Willem-Alexander Children’s Hospital (WAKZ)) and Charlotte Poot (PhD student at the National eHealth Living Lab) set up the Hospital Hero foundation. The foundation now stands on its own two feet and has successfully launched its own app. The Hospital Hero app of the same name is even so successful that it can also be used in other hospitals. The enthusiasm for this is great.
The Hospital Hero app was conceived by Nicole Donkel and Veronique van Noort, two pediatric nurses from the WAKZ, the children’s hospital of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). Since 2021, the free app has been guiding children aged 4 to 10 in a fun and playful way before, during and after their care trip in the WAKZ. In the app, for example, they can already practice an action at home with the animal of their choice, such as measuring and weighing. Once in the hospital, the app offers a lot of distraction. Kids can search for virtual animals by scanning QR codes. These are hidden in different rooms in the outpatient clinic.
Tailor-made for every hospital
“When we set up the Hospital Hero Foundation, we immediately set ourselves the goal of developing an app that can be used by various hospitals. We find that the app really makes a difference in the hospital experience of our young patients. We are very happy that we can support an even larger group of patients with the rollout in other homes.” says Donkel.
Since June this year, the Juliana Children’s Hospital in The Hague has been affiliated as a testing ground hospital. “We have been able to tackle minor technical challenges with this, which means that our app is now ready for a wider rollout,” adds Poot.
Hospitals that also want to use the app can register with Hospital Hero. “During an intake interview, together with the department, we look at what the hospital trip looks like for children and what examinations or actions are taking place. We then set up the app so that it really focuses on the hospital itself,” explains Poot. “That means that we use, among other things, photos of the hospital’s treatment and waiting room and process the hospital’s mascot in the app. It takes no extra time for the caregivers themselves, just a healthy dose of enthusiasm.”
Good connection to care trip for children
An important difference with similar initiatives is that the entire care journey of the child is central in the Hospital Hero app. “We not only look at the moment the child is in the treatment chair, but also at all the moments around it: before, during and after. Because if we look at how tense children and their parents come in, we think we can limit part of the tension there,” explains Donkel.
The app was partly realized thanks to a donation to the ‘Smile’ project of the Children’s Hospitals of Oranje foundation.