Spurred by the limitations of COVID-19 safety precautions, children’s hospitals around the country have been using interactive patient engagement technology from SONIFI Health to provide familiar comforts of home and engaging entertainment to pediatric patients.
Hospitals like Children’s Memorial Hermann, Children’s Minnesota, Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children, and Sanford Children’s frequently use positive distraction techniques to reduce patients’ anxiety and stress. But when the pandemic restricted in-person positive distraction options, SONIFI Health helped facilitate dozens of custom use cases on its interactive platform in pediatric settings.
With SONIFI Health technology implemented in more than 4,000 beds in children’s hospitals, there has been a high demand for adapting coping strategies for young patients, especially those in isolation.
For some locations, this has been as simple as elevating the most popular features of their existing interactive TV platform, making it easy to view on-demand movies, listen to kid-friendly music and relaxation content, mirror screens for gaming, and stream their favorite content.
“Our technology and its features have helped make families more comfortable, and relieved clinical staff during particularly stressful times,” said Heather Hallett, SONIFI Health’s Vice President of Customer Success.
Other patient experience teams created contactless activities for patients by using their SONIFI Health system to broadcast custom videos, including celebrity book readings, physicians doing magic tricks, virtual pet therapy visits, and mindfulness exercises like yoga and breathing techniques tailored to a young audience. Adding livestreams have been a popular way to bring fun events into children’s rooms.
“We’ve found that offering special content on the interactive TV — like our live feed of animals at the San Diego Zoo and streaming video of special celebrations like our Christmas tree lighting ceremony — has helped our families feel more connected to each other and their community,” said Ashley Nelson, Director of Patient Experience at Sanford Children’s Hospital and Sanford Health in South Dakota.
“It’s been inspiring to see the ingenuity from our partners at children’s hospitals as they’ve found ways to share kindness and a sense of connection with patients during an exceptionally challenging year,” said Roy Kosuge, SONIFI Health’s General Manager. “Based on the feedback the hospitals have been getting over the past year and a half, many of these low-effort, high-impact positive distraction ideas will likely be implemented long term. It’s an honor for our SONIFI team to be part of these projects, and we’re excited to see what creative ideas come next.”
About SONIFI Health
SONIFI Health provides interactive technology solutions proven to improve patient engagement, outcomes and staff productivity. The system is delivered across multiple technology platforms including mobile devices, televisions, computers and digital displays to enhance patient and family experiences while increasing hospital operational efficiencies. As part of SONIFI Solutions Inc., the company supports more than 500 million end user experiences per year. Learn more at sonifihealth.com.
