What is the LOUISA project about?
The LOUISA project was launched by the Center for Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine at Essen University Hospital and the Essen University Medical Center Foundation. In everyday hospital life, the legal representatives of sick children are often the first point of contact when it comes to explanations and information about complex measures or illnesses. This project aims to focus on the sick children in order to inform them in a way that is appropriate to their situation and time. Especially for chronically ill children with protracted treatments, an understanding of their illness is an indispensable prerequisite for effective treatment. This applies both to the hospital stay and to the subsequent time at home. It is very important that patients regularly document certain values, adhere to their medication schedule and monitor vital signs.
The goal of LOUISA is to create more transparency between the treatment team and the patient and his or her relatives, to reduce fear and uncertainty, and to increase the patient’s sense of autonomy.
All these requirements spoke in favor of a patient portal in the form of an app which is closely linked to the hospital information system (HIS). In addition, the idea came up to support the children in a motivational and child-oriented way by means of a gamification approach. This should be controlled by an avatar/character that becomes the child’s buddy with a handicap.
The project is scheduled to run until the end of 2023.
What does LOUISA mean?
The combination of letters stands for Lernen – Orientieren – Unterhalten – Informieren – Simulieren – Austauschen. All these components will be included in the app, with more or less emphasis and more or less gamification. The points of informing and exchanging are of particular importance in order to better pick up the patients where they are. There will be child-friendly information (explanatory texts and videos) about diseases, treatments, the body itself and much more. In addition, an exchange with the treatment team as well as other patients will be possible.
Further information can be found on the website of the Center for Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine of the University Hospital Essen.
What will Centigrade do in the project?
Centigrade has been assigned to develop a motivating gamification concept and a child-friendly and visually appealing character, as well as the screen design of the app. Further visual work in the form of illustration of explanatory texts and the design of the new children’s clinic in Essen is planned. Details on our approach to the project will follow in further articles.
What exactly we mean by gamification and how it can be used to motivate children can be read in the article about the MightyU research project.
What’s next?
From now on, we will report regularly on the progress of this exciting project. In the next episode, Nathalie Mini, our concept designer, will report on how the process started in this project and how a gamification concept is fundamentally approached.
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