Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, were looking for a partner to design and implement a patient entertainment system for their new hospital. Airwave Healthcare, a leading systems integrator delivering a range of functionalities and unique platforms to meet the differing needs of their service users, were the obvious selection.

As part of the project brief, Alder Hey stated:

“Alder Hey in the Park is inviting, warm, happy, calming and educational, essentially a home-from-home for children who need care. Next generation technology improves the way we deliver healthcare – from keeping patient records to dispensing medicines by robot.”

With this in mind, Airwave designed an IPTV system to include the potential to take content from a variety of broadcast sources (including the hospital’s own cartoon channel) and all delivered over easy to use hospitality TV sets.

Airwave included two “next generation” solutions in the system design:

• Streaming of live tv to mobile devices (over the estate’s Wi-Fi network), believed to be the first example of this technology across the NHS.
• An “eyegaze technology” solution, enabling patients to control the TV using eye movement only.

The Trust had a requirement to provide patient entertainment / information free of charge at point of use – primarily at, but not restricted to, the patient bedhead. This would Provide access to television, radio, internal hospital radio and patient information services.

As part of the design process, Airwave provided consultancy services to ensure the end specification delivered a system that included a PES that delivered the initial expectations of the trust within budget and timeframe limitations.

The inclusion of next generation technology has a significant impact to a patient’s experience.

Including a provision for wireless streaming of live TV to mobile devices enables clinicians to keep patients, in this instance children, engaged and calm by providing continued TV viewing even during movement throughout the hospital (for treatment/consultations etc).