Private tour of The Children's Hospital

BlogFrog enables and improves online communities. As part of that, we also want to improve offline communities as well. This month we're raising money for Haiti, and in December we did a fundraiser on behalf of The Children's Hospital.

We were thrilled when The Children's Hospital invited us on a private tour on behalf of our users. The Children's Hospital serves the sickest children in a 9 state region. It has the only Level 3C Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the state.

model of the children's hospital made entirely out of legos

The tour was fascinating. The attention to detail is amazing. No wheelchairs - only red wagons. Art is placed at the kids eye level. Each floor has a "pain free" play area where no medical procedures are allowed (this play area is funded completely by donations). Every room has an XBox 360 for a sense of normalcy for older patients.

the 3 buildings in the distance are nothing but lab space - 1.1 Million sq feet!

The Childrens Hospital is about more than treating sick kids, they also have huge research and advocacy efforts. They have over 1.1 Million square feet of lab space where they are researching curues for the most dibilitating diesieses. They run huge advocacy campaigns to prevent child abuse - since at Children's child abuse is the #1 cause of trauma death (can you believe it?)

The technical highlight of the tour for me was the touring the Gate Analysis Lab. This is a room where they combine infrared sensors and cameras with a pressure sensitive floor to diagnose motor impairments in children. Take a look:

Rustin Banks at Children's Hospital from Holly Hamann on Vimeo.


BlogFrog Newsletter Feb 2010 from Holly Hamann on Vimeo.
Our newsletter from The Childrens Hospital

That was our amazing tour. Tune in this week for lessons learned from the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston Texas.