Forest Hospital VR Experience

To address the psychological needs of children with chronic illnesses in Children’s Health Ireland, an innovative Forest Hospital is being developed by the Psychology Department. There will be three phases to the forest hospital intervention. The second phase will be a forest workshop on the rooftop of the new children’s hospital. The first phase is a virtual reality experience of the forest, which inpatient children who are too sick to attend the forest activities can access.

This week the UCD Media and Entertainment Lab hosted the Forest Hospital clinical psychology team from Children's Health Ireland, and Eirmersive was delighted to join the discussion. The project, is in collaboration with NUI Galway and Barretstown.

Brendan Rooney, PhD, Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology, UCD said, “We're excited to explore the psychological (and other) benefits of engaging with nature. But we're also really excited to work with Eirmersive to see how we can design play, imagination and fun into the hospital using narrative, media, and entertainment.”

Photo by Brendan Rooney

Researchers from the lab presented their work exploring how the implementation of awe and meaning using play and flexible entertainment media can support the other exciting initiatives for the new hospital.

Camille Donegan, CEO at Eirmersive said, “It was a brilliant session. I loved hearing the latest from PhD researchers focusing on VR and psychology - I learnt a lot and am excited to see how the combination of practical and academic best practice will add value to this meaningful project”