Westside : Hospitals Setting Up Cyberspace Playground
Time in the hospital is no fun for kids, but UCLA is joining with the Starbright Foundation and other medical facilities to make hospital stays as bearable for them as possible.
Seriously ill children at UCLA soon will be able to play with each other and with patients in other hospitals through a “virtual reality play space” computer network. Seven hospitals nationwide will be linked to this so-called Starbright World--an interactive multimedia technology.
The network offers its young patients fun destinations--such as Tropical World, Cave World and Sky World--where they can meet, explore and communicate. Sprint has provided the fiber-optics for the program and Intel has donated computer hardware.
Hospitals in New York, Pittsburgh, Palo Alto and Boston are already hooked into Starbright World and to the Starbright network in Seattle. UCLA plans to be on line by February, along with hospitals in Dallas and Washington, D.C.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
