The A Heart, a World in Your Hands project comes into being.

Two socially useful NPOs, A-Tono Onlus and the "Un Cuore, un Mondo Onlus" Association, inaugurate an innovative 24/7 hot line between the families of children with heart disease and the volunteers who work at the Massa Heart Hospital (Ospedale del Cuore di Massa)

A-Tono's socially useful NPO The World in Your Hand Onlus and the Un Cuore un Mondo Onlus Association have created A Heart, the World in Your Hands. This innovative project has significantly improved communications between the families of children with heart disease and the volunteers who work for the Association. Un Cuore, Un Mondo Onlus is a private, independent, non-profit association which works at the Massa Heart Hospital (Ospedale del Cuore di Massa). It was founded in 1993 by the parents of children with heart disease who had been admitted to hospital. Its mission is to help and support children born with heart problems, and give them a chance and hope for a full and worthy life.

The first concrete result of the A Heart, a World in Your Hands project is the Association's new website, www.uncuoreunmondo.org, which provides easy to use information according to target: patients and their parents seeking help for care, volunteers wishing to apply to join the team, donors, and institutions.

A live chat system allows volunteers to be available 24/7, thus making communication between families and the Association considerably easier as the child's hospitalization draws nearer. The volunteers reply personally offering advice and information regarding the accommodation available to families, supplying support for the daily needs of those who have to stay in Massa for weeks during the period of hospitalization, and providing aid for all the paperwork that families coming from abroad need to prepare, including liaison interpreting for those who cannot speak Italian. The traditional channels, such as e-mail and telephone calls, are handled in the same back-office tool, and all contacts are managed in a single dossier which, when necessary, is transferred to the healthcare staff and the service organizers.

A-Tono Onlus dealt with the design and development of the website, and provided the volunteers with a CMS which allows them complete freedom to update the contents of all website sections. "We are thrilled to have contributed to this project by making our resources and technological skills available," said Giuseppe Granato, Chairman of A-Tono Onlus. "From our first meeting with the Association, we immediately understood the importance of this project and how useful it would be to improve the experience of the families in a concrete way by transforming the website into a discreet tool, which respects their feelings at such difficult times. The name of this project is an example of the aim we set ourselves: to bring the Massa Association into the hands of the public."

The Ospedale del Cuore Pasquinucci Fondazione Toscana Gabriele Monasterio di Massa is a highly specialized centre of international importance. It is devoted to the diagnosis, care and treatment of congenital heart diseases in babies and in adults, and is a branch of the Azienda ospedaliera e dell’Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche di Pisa (Hospital and Institute of Clinical Physiology of the National Research Council of Pisa).

 

CREDITS:

Un Cuore un Mondo Onlus

Mario Locatelli - Chairman

Valentina Nardini - Content management

Enrica Legname, Elisa Bertugelli - Back-office and live support

 

A-Tono The World in Your Hand ONLUS

Enzo Dell’Aquila - Project management and system integrations

Marinella Dal Sasso, Andrea Pacini (User Interface and CMS) - Design

Stefano di Sandro - Management