Fast Company Features MedTouch's Work
Cambridge, MA – July 12, 2002 – "The solution is stunning," writes Fast Company of the MedTouch-designed Carl Sagan Discovery Program Web site for the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) in the Bronx.
MedTouch’s design team worked closely with the CHAM President Irwin Redlener and Carl Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan in developing a unique look intended to inspire children and embody the hospital’s organizing theme: "Children are explorers on a journey to health." MedTouch worked carefully to balance the thematic artwork with the high need for easy navigation of the site.
The unique Web site offers educational, recreational and social support features for patients and families, and administrative support for hospital staffers. Because the hospital serves a range of children from diverse socio-economic communities, MedTouch’s technology partner Ybos developed a "smart" interface in which the site’s graphics, text, and content changes automatically based on patients' specific ages and primary languages. The site provides patients with access to the Internet via a content-controlled portal.
As part of CHAM's Interactive Technology Initiative, every patient room and select family areas in the hospital are equipped with computers and special hardware to ensure that all the hospital’s clients are wired for participation.
Ultimately, CHAM would like to see its Web solution standardized and reimplemented at children’s hospitals around the country. "Our project is a model," said Jeb Weisman, Director of Information services for the hospital. "We needed technology and solutions we could trust and that we could economically share with others."
About MedTouch
MedTouch provides customer-facing web solutions for hospitals and healthcare organizations. MedTouch partners with CIO/CTOs and marketing departments to deliver full web site implementations including architecture planning, design and content development. We offer enterprise-level, web-based content management solutions with distributed authorship and a stepped-up process workflow. MedTouch clients include major medical centers, healthcare content providers and public health initiatives.
