BRIDGING THE GAP
Without human connection due to social distancing, how could AIM continue to help?
WITH QUARANTINING AND PHYSICAL DISTANCING, the AIM team no longer could have their typical human-to-human interactions. And without this human connection, how could AIM continue to help patients, family members, visitors, staff, faculty, the community and others?
“We had to reframe what it meant to deliver these practices without being able to sit in a patient’s room,” Mullen said. “And we did it. We found those ways.”
The combination of art and technology has been a powerful vehicle for those wanting to stay creatively connected while physically distancing. For the music modality, Facebook Live became the best tool. Anyone in the hospital could see the musician and request a specific song in real time.
“That’s the difference,” Mullen explained. “We didn’t want to record something because you can look up recorded performances on the internet all day long. Our work is patient-driven and the key is having the patient ask for what they want and us responding.”
AIM hosts Facebook Live all-request concerts featuring musician in residence Michael Claytor every Friday to continue serving patients, their family and staff. Participants make song requests by commenting in the Facebook Live feed, and the admin team distributes the requests to Claytor, who responds as he would in a patient's room, playing the song if he knows it or suggesting another in kind.
Photo by Jesse Jones
Zoom became the means for dancers to deliver classes for Parkinson’s patients, multiple sclerosis patients and seniors in the community. The results were amazing.
“People are dancing every week via Zoom,” Mullen said. “Yoga is happening every week with more participants than ever. The pandemic has given us an opportunity to figure out how to do more, not less. We are reaching people who we normally wouldn’t.”
The visual artists thought about everything they would normally do when they go into a service area and made hundreds of specialized kits with instructions, taking into account a patient’s age, physical and mental acuity, as well as service location and allergies. Nurses can go to a cart, pick up the appropriate kits and take them to their patient’s room.
“If there’s a patient who struggles with arm movement, there’s a kit for them. If there’s another who is under the age of 13, there’s a kit for them. It’s incredible!” Mullen exclaimed.
Lauren Arce, M.S.N., R.N., O.C.N., AHN-BC, AIM’s nurse coordinator, became the artists’ eyes and ears on units, connecting with colleagues and accessing patients through existing structures to facilitate technology-based arts engagement on an institutional scale.
AIM service learning coordinator Samantha Moss and operation assistant Erin Hendryx created the internet-based platform “AIM to Connect,” which is now available in some patient rooms via interactive technology called SONIFI. Through this system, patients can engage in live sessions with artists and practitioners through a secure Zoom channel. “Zoom to the Room” allows for a personalized, patient-driven experience that mirrors the on-site practice. Artists can collaborate individually or in teams with patients wanting to engage in visual art, music and songwriting.
“The foundation that this program was built on allowed us to adapt in this moment and will lead us into the future,” Mullen said. “It’s an amazing thing about what this massive disruption has done. We’ve been thinking about doing these things for 10 years, then in two weeks — boom! Because we had to. It says something about human nature.”
