UW Children’s Hospital debuts online ‘universe’ for patients
While staying in the hospital is no child’s idea of fun, the recent installation at UW Children’s Hospital of Starbright World, a high-tech onscreen ‘universe’ can relieve some of the loneliness, isolation and pain that comes with being in the hospital.
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“You can see it on the faces of these children. They are totally engaged. Starbright World gives these kids a new kind of social life.”
Mary Kaminski |
In particular, the features on the network such as supervised teleconferencing, chats, instant messages and bulletin boards, allow pediatric patients to meet other children with the same illness, providing a wonderful vehicle for emotional healing.
Just installed at UW Children’s Hospital, Starbright World is a private, interactive computer network specially designed for hospitalized children and teenagers.
It is a world like no other – where children with serious and chronic health conditions from across the nation can interact within a community of peers, helping each other cope with the day-to-day realities of life with illness.
Initially funded through efforts led by Starbright Foundation Chairmen Steven Spielberg and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Starbright World began in 1995 at five children’s hospitals. With its arrival at UW Children’s Hospital – the first and currently only hospital in Wisconsin to have Starbright World – patients at 50 children’s hospitals are now able to better combat the many challenges they face on a daily basis.
“Maybe it’s just for an hour a day,” Spielberg says. “But for that hour, kids can escape from their pain and their reality to a place where they can make anything happen. They are in total control, and we can give them a place where their imaginations can run free.
“You can see it on the faces of these children,” says Mary Kaminski, Director of Child Life at UW Children’s Hospital. “They are totally engaged. Starbright World gives these kids a new kind of social life. It opens up a brand new universe that allows our patients to meet and see new friends, talk in supervised chat rooms, play games and check out more than 500 child-friendly web sites with topics ranging from health to entertainment.”
“The beauty is in the simplicity of it,” added Boo Henderson of Madison, a member of the UW Children’s Hospital Advisory Board. “Starbright World provides a wonderful vehicle for children to channel their energy in a way that satisfies their creative instincts.”
Plans to bring Starbright World to Madison have been in the works for more than a year, according to Steven Neish, a UW Children’s Hospital pediatric cardiologist and Starbright World advocate. Neish credited the UW Children’s Hospital Advisory Board, University Hospital and Clinics Administration and the University of Wisconsin Foundation for helping turn Starbright from a dream into reality for UW Children’s Hospital patients.
Although some technological costs are covered by donations of time and equipment from corporate sponsors, Sprint and Intel, participating hospitals have contributed some of the installation expenses.
More information about Starbright World is available on the Internet at http://www.Starbright.org or by calling (310) 442-1560.