Boston Children's Hospital and Klick Health unveiled HealthVoyager Feb. 28, a patient experience platform that employs virtual reality as a way of explaining medical information to pediatric patients and their families.
The proof-of-concept technology presents 3-D models to patients on their iPhones in the hope of better engaging Boston's young patients. The first version of HealthVoyager targets gastrointestinal patients.
"Putting myself in a 9-year-old's shoes, I can see HealthVoyager being a more fun and valuable way to learn about and share complicated information like endoscopic findings," said Michael Docktor, MD, clinical director of innovation at the hospital's Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator, who co-developed the tool. "We hypothesize that the more children and their families can visualize and understand their disease, the more likely they may be to communicate when they have a particular symptom and adhere to their therapies."