Carilion Clinic Gets Everyone Involved

Only in their second year with the program, NAP Coordinator Marie Webb and the Healing Arts Committee at Carilion Clinic have done another tremendous job of finding new ways to incorporate everyone in the hospital’s artistic community.

 

This year, Marie, along with the committee decided to take the voting for their “People’s Choice” award completely online.  In order to accomplish this, each of the art pieces submitted were individually photographed and then uploaded to a page on Carilion’s website devoted entirely to the show.   Visitors to the site can view the artwork by classification, medium or just browse the gallery by artist name.  Once they decide on the piece they want to vote for, they just click the “like” button at the top of that piece’s page.  The artwork with the most “likes” at the end of the voting period will be awarded the “People’s Choice” at the reception on March 31st.

 

The addition of this element alone would have be enough for most people, but Marie and the committee really wanted to find a way to bring the show to those patients that are unable to visit the show in person.  Using the hospitals own in-house GetWell Network, which is used by patients to access television programming, internet and videos while in their rooms, they provide a link that takes patients directly to the art show page.  Here they can view the art and even participate in the “People’s Choice” voting.  Marie commented that they not only plan to keep the online version of the show up even after the live show end, but they plan to continue to add future years as well.  

 

As we at the NAP truly believe in being as inclusive as possible, we love the idea of involving people who might not normally have the opportunity to visit the show in person the chance to feel like they are part of the art community at the hospital during their stay.  We applaud Marie and the Healing Arts Committee for their efforts to find new ways to integrate the arts into the healing process.