A hospital visit can be daunting. So, children and parents can explore the building before they go using 360-degree photography and explainer videos. In a guest post, here’s how.
Hi,
My name is Phil McNamara. I am the External Communications Manager at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool.
Recently, we launched our new 360-degree virtual map of Alder Hey – called Matterport.
The challenge to solve
Many of these projects start as ambitious ideas linked to corporate strategy or vision. In our case, I was part of a group set up to improve the experience of children and young people coming to our hospital. After all, hospitals are scary places, especially if you’re only a small person. This is not a new idea; every hospital in the world has similar groups, and most of them start with ‘Let’s do a video’—there is nothing unusual about that request. I am sure most comms teams can relate.
Thankfully, 12 months earlier, I had been working on a Matterport map for Alder Hey’s Tier 4 inpatient mental health unit called Sunflower House. It is not a large building, but because of the sensitivities around the service, funders and partners could not easily access the building for a tour, for example. Plus, we wanted to show how great it was for young people (and their parents) who may stay there. So, a virtual map was an obvious idea. There was unanimous enthusiasm when I presented this option for the hospital (and eventually all the other buildings Alder Hey runs from).
How we solved it
What is a Matterport? It is basically like Google Street View, but better. It allows the user to walk around the area from any internet-enabled device as if they were in the building itself. The camera is 4K and you can add interactive areas, embed videos, MP3 files, and even games. It is perfect for a children’s hospital.
We successfully applied for funding to our brilliant charity for phase one of the project, and I was given a small project group and time to do it—well, you just had to find the time. To put it into perspective, Alder Hey is a huge place. It is one of Europe’s busiest and biggest hospitals, so mapping it was a huge task.
We used a company called VisualEyes, based in Halifax and started to plan the project. Each scan takes about 10-15 seconds and involves the camera recording a 360-degree view of its surroundings. You also have to hide from the camera. We painfully scanned each area, moving slowly through the hospital five metres at a time, clearing the area, pressing record, hiding, and then repeating. We mapped the areas we had prioritised over four weekends, covering 188,000 square feet and eight departments. Most of the scans were in the morning when the hospital was quiet.
Then, we added interactive areas called hotspots. These can be videos, labels, or sound effects. There are 156 hotspots, including 74 videos—all done in-house, i.e. scripted, filmed, and edited. We used Veed for editing. This was the longest part of the project as each area and subsequent video was different, and we had to work with teams to agree on a script and then decide on a time and place to record.
Our audience… a child
We scripted each video as if a 10-year-old was listening, so there was no jargon or abbreviations where we could, and we kept them short—a maximum of one minute and kept the style the same. We had requests to shoehorn old videos into it, but for the most part, we said no. We used children and young people from our different youth forums to present many of the videos, but often, where the subject matter was a little more complex, we used our staff, who were brilliant, although they often had to be persuaded to be on camera.
It’s easy to get lost in such a huge hospital, so we created virtual signage next. The map has over 200 virtual signs. The templates were professionally designed, and our project group created each individual sign based on the design template using Canva Pro.
Balancing this project alongside the day job was challenging, but having the support of the Executive team and managers was essential. We did have to pause the project on a few occasions, such as when we declared a major incident, as we had to prioritise different things, but we are very proud of the result.
Next steps
It is the largest virtual tour in any health setting in Europe and one of the largest in the world anywhere. We plan on phase two to finish the hospital map, add more videos and map some of the other buildings we have out in the community as well as include the latest updates. For example, we can gamify it with open-source gaming, i.e. embed html games, add treasure hunts, include AI chatbots, add avatars and even personalise a young person’s journey in the future. We have even spoken to the production company that makes CBBC’s Operation Ouch about the possibility of curating their content to add to this in the future.
I see this as a viable alternative to websites and some social media channels for young people to learn, experience and interact with an NHS organisation (although all the videos are on Alder Hey’s YouTube channel). Too often, I see public sector websites full of videos, leaflets, links, and forms that take up too much space on a website that is supposed to be for a mobile device. They target an audience that never uses them in that way. When was the last time a young person read a leaflet? In contrast, something like this is fun, practical, engaging, educational and in one place.
An unexpected spin-off
Although it is primarily for children and young people, we will use it as part of our staff induction for new starters. Our international department will send it to its overseas stakeholders. Our charity can use it to show where funding has gone and can be used for educational purposes, too.
We know the job isn’t fully complete, but we are very pleased with it. We hope, more than anything, that we help children and young people feel a little less nervous about going to Alder Hey. One comment we had from the launch which hit home was:
“…my daughter is neurodiverse and finds her visits to unknown parts of the hospital really hard! This will make all the difference, and I can’t thank you enough.”
If we have only helped that one person, then that’s enough for now.
