– Denver Film Festival showcases how Starlight Children’s Foundation leverages Lenovo’s Mirage™ Solo VR headset in its Virtual Reality program as a procedural tool for critically ill young patients, primarily to reduce anxiety during mild to moderately painful procedures.
– Since 2018, Starlight Children’s Foundation has placed over 1,300 Virtual Reality headsets in over 300 healthcare facilities transforming the hospital experience for more than 18,000 seriously ill kids.
This week, the Denver Film Festival premiered the new Lenovo THIS IS LIFE film that showcases how Starlight Children’s Foundation is leveraging the Lenovo Mirage™ Solo VR headset in its Starlight Virtual Reality program. The VR technology enables pediatricians at Children’s Hospital Colorado and hundreds of Starlight partner hospitals and healthcare facilities in the US to use the headsets as a procedural tool for critically ill young patients, primarily to reduce anxiety during mild to moderately painful procedures.
Starlight Virtual Reality Program: Transporting Hospitalized Kids to Another World
Starlight Virtual Reality is a state-of-the-art technology program that delivers happiness to seriously ill kids and families through a variety of 20+ pre-loaded, curated games, apps, and other experiences to help distract kids during difficult medical procedures or to help them relax, laugh, and just have fun. These specific programs include:
Play: Virtual reality is a highly interactive experience that engages children through both structured and unstructured activity.
Entertainment: Immersive and stimulating content combats boredom, anxiety, and isolation.
Normalization: Providing activities kids enjoy in their everyday lives helps make an unfamiliar place feel safe and even fun.
Procedural Support: Being immersed in a virtual experience decreases anxiety and stress, making medical procedures less challenging for patients and clinicians
Emotional Support: The ability for a child to be in control helps reduce anxiety during hospitalization and medical procedures
Pain Management: Usage can help manage pain and distress associated with a variety of medical procedures by encouraging patients to relax and breathe through the discomfort
Physical Therapy: Games can provide an opportunity to practice motions that can lead to reports of lower pain levels and an increased range of motion
It is the first general use VR program for hospitals that includes a customized, thoroughly wipeable, and wireless hospital-ready headset with content that allows patients with limited mobility to sit up or lay down and control their experience using a remote or only their heads. By using VR as a calming distraction, several patients have been able to undergo these procedures whilst awake, cutting down lengthy recovery times, and reducing the need for medication.
Since 2018, Starlight Children’s Foundation has placed over 1,300 Virtual Reality headsets in over 300 health care facilities transforming the hospital experience for more than 18,000 seriously ill kids. Starlight is on pace to have approximately 2,000 Virtual Reality units in circulation at pediatric facilities across the U.S. by the end of 2019.
Future Plans
The ultimate goal is that every children’s hospital and the pediatric unit is equipped with enough Starlight Virtual Reality units to meet their needs. Starlight estimates this to be 4,500 headsets, one for each Certified Child Life Specialist and clinician who can integrate it at the point of care.
Starlight is currently adding more experiences to its database of VR content and will soon launch a companion app that will mirror the VR content to a phone or tablet in order to allow a medical professional or guardian to see, guide, or curate content for the patient. In addition, Starlight will work on specialized content creation like 360° custom hospital tours and community/multi-player apps. Starlight’s ultimate goal is to enable other hospitals across the country to create their own specific VR content (with cameras supplied by Starlight).
Why It Matters
“We believe happy children heal faster, and the astounding impact of Starlight’s Virtual Reality program at Children’s Hospital Colorado affirms our belief in the transformative power of technology to positively affect a child’s experience in the hospital. We’re extremely grateful to all parties for their generous support in working alongside us to develop this program and in ensuring that we can continue to deliver it at such a large scale to thousands of children at hundreds of hospitals,” said Adam Garone, CEO, Starlight Children’s Foundation.
Donate
Just $10 provides 10 hours of virtual reality gives seriously ill kids the chance to travel away from the hospital – and scary procedures – with Starlight VR. For more information on donations, visit https://donate.starlight.org/give/250158/#!/donation/checkout
