Hospitals everywhere are striving to make the patient experience a little less daunting by adding comforts of home. Like any other patients, hospitalized children and teens have questions--lots of them--and, of course, want to stay connected with their friends and the outside world.

The Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., is addressing their needs by replacing the old TVs in outpatient units and the emergency department with bedside touch-screen units that feature video games, Internet access and educational medical programming geared toward younger patients and their families, as well as standard television. Called GetWell Town, the system is a pediatric version of GetWellNetwork's interactive devices in adult hospital wards.

GetWell Town is tied in to the hospital's Epic EMR, hospital information system and patient portal for convenient access to patient information. The system also incorporates paging and allows users to request changes to room temperature and other maintenance services.

For more information:
- take a look at this InformationWeek story

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GetWellNetwork, Top Health IT innovator 2007