Alder Hey Children’s Hospital is seeking technology and approaches to improve the pediatric patient’s experience while administering Mydriatic eye drops. Technologies, approaches, and administration techniques addressing novel delivery systems and immersive experiences will be considered.
Background
The use of Mydriatic eye drops is essential to many ophthalmology procedures, however the conventional administration technique is often a negative experience for young patients and their guardians. Alder Hey Children’s is eager to reduce the distress of patients as well as improving the efficiency of ophthalmology appointments.
Key Success Criteria & Solution Ideas
Must Haves
- Eye drop delivery system: An appropriate dosage of solution must reach the open eye to ensure the medication is effective.
- Child friendly: Technology must be an appropriate size for use with young children. Age range from 2 and above. Technically, there will be no age cut off as pediatric patients with learning difficulties or delay may benefit from this approach. The estimated group most likely to use this will be 3 to 10 years old.
- Repeatable: Often patients will require multiple doses over a period, the technology needs to ensure a patient remains compliant after the initial use i.e potential for content to be upgraded or modified.
- Sanitary: Technology must be able to be disinfected between patients. – Easy to use and not time consuming: it must be user friendly and not tedious so clinic staff can use this as part of their practice.
- Data demonstrating the efficacy of medication administration.
Nice to Haves
- Prototypes for clinical testing
- Potential for use in adult healthcare in future development
Possible Approaches
The use of an immersive headset, like virtual reality, to draw attention away from the treatment and administer eye drops as part of the experience.
Novel technology that disperses medication to the eye without causing irritation or discomfort.
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