Social networking app should make long hospital stays easier for kids

Over the next four to six months McMaster Children's Hospital (MCH) in Hamilton will be the live testing ground for Upopolis.com, a social networking website designed exclusively for hospitalized children.Launched by the Kids' Health Links Foundation, Telus Corp. and MCH, the secure, controlled portal delivered on laptop computers provides in-bed access to email and games as well as connectivity to friends, family and schools, and could dramatically improve the lives of kids in hospital for extended periods of time. "We're providing, through technology, something that will have a health impact, and hopefully a healing impact, on a child," says Upopolis creator Basile Papaevangelou, who also founded KHLF with his daughter Christina in 2004. "All hospitals have one or two computers in a room for kids to use, but what about the child flat on their back in bed for six months? What about the kid in for dialysis? They can't get around. So that's where we come in with the laptop solution." Of course, Upopolis does more than bring Internet access to hospital wards. Papaevangelou says it addresses the two main concerns of hospitalized children - staying in touch with family and keeping up in school. It also enhances the hospital experience by providing access to kid-friendly medical information and by enabling kids to chat with other hospitalized children, especially those with the same condition. The intention is to increase the comfort level of the child and alleviate stress, both of which have been proven beneficial to recovery. While the launch of Upopolis' live trial is the perfect just-in-time-for-Christmas story, it actually began almost six years ago. In February 2002 Christina was admitted to MCH with symptoms of Toxic Shock Syndrome. Papaevangelou says at that time, developing a new media solution for hospitalized children was the furthest thing from his mind. "When your child is sick in hospital with a life-threatening illness you're thinking is she going to come out? Is she going to be whole and well?" he says. "But after she came out it started me thinking about giving back. This hospital saved my daughter's life, I have to do something." That something, however, didn't become evident until Christina's close friend Katy McDonald was diagnosed with cancer and admitted to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. About an hour away from her family and friends in Burlington, Katy used a laptop to keep connected with her world back home. And although she lost her battle with cancer, her experiences provided the initial inspiration for Upopolis. Papaevangelou says the idea was originally brainstormed on a napkin at a dinner party, and it couldn't have been in better hands to make the leap from idea to reality. Already well known at MCH from his time on the Capital Campaign Committee for Hamilton Health Sciences, Papaevangelou received instant support when he approached the hospital. Then shortly after when Telus Business Solutions president Joe Natale invited him to sit on the telco's Ontario advisory council, Papaevangelou ran the idea by Natale and Telus was immediately on board. With teenaged Christina as his technical advisor and Telus as the architect Upopolis began incorporating all the applications that would be useful to hospitalized children. With feedback from ChildLife professionals and children themselves, the site became even more comprehensive. And once the application was ready for the live trial at MCH, Papaevangelou turned to the corporate community once again, this time securing more than 20 laptops donated by Toshiba Canada. Once the MCH trial is over, Papaevangelou hopes to partner with more laptop providers as Upopolis rolls out to hospitals across the country. Because Upopolis essentially acts as an installed web browsing interface on a computer, controlling and restricting Internet access, it will only be available on the hospital laptops. They will be distributed to patients by ChildLife workers on a library-style sign-out basis, limited to a few hours a day so as not to interfere with treatment and rest schedules. Papaevangelou also hopes the MCH trial will end with a version 2.0 of the application for a wider rollout. As a mechanical engineer, he envisions developing an algorithm where hospitals can plug in information like their number of beds, patient demographics and average length of stay to calculate how many laptops they will need. KHLF is also funding one additional ChildLife worker for MCH to facilitate the use of Upopolis. In the future this worker will be able travel to additional hospitals to train more ChildLife professionals on the program. With Christmas in mind, listening to the evolution of Upopolis certainly conjures images of the seminal scene from It's a Wonderful Life when George Bailey returns home to find all his friends eager to give their support. And just as the Bailey Building & Loan would have gone under with out money from George's friends, Papaevangelou says without the cooperation of Telus and MCH, Upopolis would likely be a five-year-old Word document on his hard drive. "What McMaster provided was the validation that it was a great idea," he says. "And what Telus provided was the wherewithal and the technology to turn that idea into a reality....I would like to see people in general and corporations in particular have the philanthropic heart of the organizations that are partnered with us on this program."

Social networking app should make long hospital stays easier for kids

Broadcast | December 17, 2007

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us