Virtual app image from Patient's Virtual Guide

Virtual app image from Patient’s Virtual Guide

At the Akashic Times, we try to feature positive news to inspire people in a world where it seems that only negative news, terrorist attacks and murders seem to be featured prominently in the headlines. This is one of the reasons we have a whole section on the Akashic Times dedicated to positive news.

The stories that we feature often document the great work and progress made by organisations, and sometimes even governments. However, the stories that we prefer to feature are the powerful efforts of ordinary people who prove that all it takes to change the world around you is one person.

This is Dom’s story.

After his daughter Issy fell ill from cancer, this sets off a chain of events that led to Dom creating a virtual hospital that has helped thousands of young patients.

It was 29 November 2011, when Issy was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. “The date is ingrained on my brain,” says Raban. She underwent 18 rounds of chemo and received proton therapy in Florida, which was funded by the NHS. Issy has now been cancer-free for six years.

However, when his daughter went online during her illness, the only information she found about her condition were overwhelmingly negative and unhelpful. Most websites she found simply highlighted the grim survival rates of people with her condition: 20 per cent.

Even after her recovery, the lack of information left her with a deep mistrust of the healthcare system.

Dom Raban created a virtual app called Patient's Virtual Guide

Dom Raban created a virtual app called Patient’s Virtual Guide

One of the solutions that Raban came up with is the development of an app – Patient’s Virtual Guide – to help inform young patients who are going through similar experiences.

Raban runs Manchester-based digital agency Corporation Pop.

In an interview with Positive News, he said: “Finding out your daughter has a life-threatening illness is devastating and my way of dealing with that was to get this app off the ground. It’s been a cathartic process for me.”

The app uses games, graphics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and text (written by medical writers) to guide patients through a virtual hospital.

The app also helps patients to learn about their condition and become familiar with the equipment they are likely to encounter in hospital. They do not receive information about their prognosis.

The app has received funding from the NHS, Nominet Trust – an investor in ‘socially motivated’ tech – and innovation agency Innovate UK. It will be trialled in Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital this autumn. Raban believes the app could save the NHS money.

He continued: “It’s about communicating health information in a way that makes children feel engaged with the treatment they are receiving. Evidence suggests that if you put information in the hands of patients, they experience reduced stress and anxiety, which can lead to better clinical outcomes.

“If we can increase children’s health literacy, this will provide the groundwork for a generation of patients who are better able to manage their healthcare. This would help the NHS meet one of its long-term strategic goals, which is having a population that is less reliant on health services.”

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