Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has launched the largest hospital virtual tour in Europe.
The project has been funded by Alder Hey Children's Charity, with the first stage including the mapping of things like the hospital’s A&E, atrium, radiology department, wards, Rainbow Centre and more.
Europe’s largest
The virtual tour features:
- 360° walk-throughs of more than 188,000 sq ft of the site, all captured in 4K
- 156 interactive hotspots
- 74 explainer videos
- Virtual signposting
The scale of the virtual technology-enabled scanning means it is the most extensive map if its kind in any health setting across the continent.
Purpose
The innovation has been actioned to help children and young people familiarise themselves with the hospital before visiting to help ease, anxiety and stress.
The interactive nature of the tour helps give patients a behind-the-scenes look at Alder Hey, while the videos explain how the various procedures and appointments work.
“Launching the 360° virtual map is part of the hospital’s mission to improve the experience for children and young people coming to the hospital,” said Alder Hey’s chief nursing officer, Nathan Askew.
“As part of our Vision 2030, we want to make visiting Alder Hey as positive an experience as possible and to make learning about what happens in one of Europe’s busiest and biggest children’s hospitals informative and fun.”
A children’s NHS
This comes after Alder Hey Children’s Charity launched a call for a new children’s NHS that would tackle health inequalities costing the health service approximately £39bn a year.
A reformed health service would see a children’s representative appointed to inform the ministerial taskforce on child poverty, as well as on every mission delivery board across the government.
A commissioning framework for children and young people that promotes holistic and efficient paediatric care would also be developed.
To learn more about innovation at Alder Hey, click here.
Image credit: iStock
