Living with and managing a serious condition like diabetes or cancer is difficult for patients of any age. For children and their parents, it can be especially daunting. To help pediatric patients and their parents cope with their situation, Seattle Children’s Hospital has spent the past several years developing and implementing an mHealth solution. 

The hospital’s mobile app PRISM (Promoting Resiliency in Stress Management) was piloted for two years. It was recently unveiled as an updated app and mHealth platform that expands the original program that has helped pediatric hospital patients deal with chronic conditions for over 10 years.

The focus of PRISM has become “resilience” – providing resources like tools to improve coping skills, forward thinking and quality of life to help boost resilience. This focus helps provide support for patients and families beyond clinical support. The hospital and its collaborators on the platform – Seattle Children’s Research Foundation, Cambia Health Solutions and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation – used feedback from users over the past two years to better position the platform as a coping tool.

The ultimate goal is to make the platform available to children’s hospitals nationwide, as well as others. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a great demand for building resilience throughout society. A PRISM At Work version of the platform has been launched for use by teachers and students. The hope is that the PRISM platform can eventually be connected to additional telehealth resources.