New website helps parents manage children’s illnesses

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

A new Alberta Health Services website helps parents manage common childhood illnesses and injuries that do not require treatment in an emergency department. The site officially launched Sept. 15.
The HEAL (Health Education and Learning) website was developed by a team of emergency doctors and clinicians and, according to Alberta Health Services, its primary purpose is to provide Albertan families with “easily accessible, reliable information about common minor illnesses and injuries in children.”
The website contains information about common colds, croup, coughs, ear pain, nose bleeds, head injuries, vomiting and diarrhea, fever, febrile seizures and rashes. The site also contains detailed descriptions, symptoms, treatments and advice on when to seek medical attention.
Dr. Naminder Sandhu, pediatric emergency physician at Alberta Children’s Hospital, was part of the initial organizing committee that developed the website. The concept for the website was developed approximately five years ago.
“The main purpose is to target those families who are concerned about their children having illnesses that we would deem to be common childhood illnesses, and provide them with medical advice on what they can do to manage their children at home, how to decide if they’re sick or whether or not to come into the emergency department,” she said.
Dr. Sandhu wants parents to be educated about childhood illnesses and also wants to “empower them so they can make some decisions before showing up at an acute care facility.”
The site is new for the Calgary and Strathmore region; however, there have been somewhat similar efforts in different parts of the country.
Similar content can be found through MyHealth.Alberta.ca, but Sandhu said they wanted to make sure they weren’t “reinventing the wheel or being redundant.”
Sandhu and the HEAL team collaborated with MyHealth.Alberta.ca to ensure the site is as “accessible and as literacy friendly” as possible, without being “overwhelming or hard to navigate.
“We really want it to be as relevant to families as possible,” said Sandhu.
The HEAL website team also consulted with 811 Health Link to ensure the use of similar information in different ways. Health Link provides health advice from a registered nurse when patients call in to a phone number 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Our information is sort of complimentary to that,” said Sandhu.
Content on the site comes directly from pediatric emergency medicine experts at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and the Stollery Children’s Hospital.
“The people behind it (website) are the front line workers that they (patients) would end up seeing at the Children’s Hospital emergency department,” said Sandhu.
The site strives to create an comfortable atmosphere by demonstrating what to expect when coming to a hospital, showcasing videos about emergency staff and revealing who is who at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.
Alberta Health Services said HEAL was reviewed by staff and families to ensure that it is “user-friendly, understandable and easy to navigate.”
The site provides useful links to the Alberta Children’s Hospital, the 811 Health Link and emergency wait times.
HEAL is associated with Alberta Health Services’ Know Your Options Campaign that helps educate Albertans about different health care options available in different communities. Alberta Health Services states that it strives to show the public, “how to get the right care in the right place.”
Sandhu said the new site is “going to be very dynamic. We are hoping that people will actually e-mail in and let us know what they would find useful to further develop it,” she said. “We really do want to add more information.”
Visit HEAL at ahs.ca/heal or albertahealthservices.ca/heal.