The solution
Dedicated online workshops were held with service users, health and care staff, family members and senior managers to ensure HACW and VerseOne gained a deep understanding of the key issues stakeholders expected Life Stories to address.
A collaborative design process followed, with VerseOne working hand-in-hand with HACW professionals, led by Dr Natasha Lord, Lead Older Adults Mental Health Clinical Psychologist, to ensure the digital platform provided a personalised and safe space in which users could create and design their own life story, framing the memories and moments which matter most to them.
Recollections, images, key facts, video, music and more can be uploaded to deliver a personalised, powerful and secure digital book which can be shared and accessed anywhere on any device, supporting the delivery of true integrated care.
Key features also include a secure registration process, expert-led templated chapters, curated and copyright-free Life Story resource packs, and the capability to upload content (photographs, audio, video) from personal devices or online sources, including social media.
Life Stories can be integrated with other health and care digital systems, and exported and shared with any nominated contact via PDF, slideshow video or printed book format, too.
The therapeutic application is already being put to work within clinical settings across Herefordshire and Worcestershire to stimulate memories in service users with varying degrees of dementia, but has also been designed with the general public in mind, and is now live and free to residents of both counties.