Even if you are ill, you can stay connected

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: If shopping is indeed a form of therapy, why does nobody seem to get better? Because of one innovation, one group of shoppers may start.

Hospitals have begun installing Internet systems, complete with dedicated shopping channels, to help patients pick up goods they will need for their recuperation. The idea is that patients and visitors who are busy shopping and browsing the Web will be happier, less prone to bother nurses, and more likely to arm themselves with healthcare information that can help smooth the patient’s recovery. “Just like they would with a hotel, patients expect a degree of connectedness when they’re in the hospital,” said Timothy Zoph, chief information officer at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. “And for ones that do it well, like we

think we do, it’s a differen-tiating experience.”

Northwestern Memorial last year spent an undisclosed amount to install 42-inch flat-screen televisions and Internet connections near each of the 200 beds in its new women’s hospital building. The screens are big enough, and close enough, for patients to read the text on Web pages, which patients click through with a remote-control keyboard and mouse.

They may also zoom in on certain parts of a page. When users switch on the screen, they see a welcome page with four links—for TV, the

Web, medical education and hospital information. In the last category, patients can adjust the temperature in their rooms and order meals.

The “patient education” link yields more than 1,000 pages of information and videos the hospital has developed on conditions specific to patients on a given floor of the facility, like oncology. “This is empowering patients to be partners in their care,” Zoph said.

Meanwhile, it is helping Northwestern and other technologically adept hospitals attract more customers. As they are slowly refurbishing old buildings, Zoph and others said, hospitals are also revamping their technology systems. In many cases, this means improved electronic records and pharmaceutical distribution systems, to improve safety and efficiency. By offering Internet access to patients on big-screen TVs, though, hospitals are providing a “wow” factor that, they said, helps them compete against other facilities nearby.

Only a small fraction of the nation’s roughly 6,000 community hospitals have bedside Internet systems, perhaps because the costs can be considerable.

According to Michael O’Neil Jr, GetWellNetwork’s chief executive, the company recently began testing an online shopping channel that is tailored to a patient’s medical condition. Relying on a system designed by the Paquin Group, which is based in Celebration, Fla, two of GetWellNetwork's clients now present patients with a checklist of products they will need when they get home. Deliveries are scheduled in conjunction with the patient’s expected discharge, and hospitals split the profits from the sale with Paquin Group and GetWellNetwork.