Casa Blanca Salon and Spa Supports the Community

The owners of Casa Blanca Salon and Spa, Neil and Marcina Checketts, selected the PC Pals program because it has a direct and profound impact on seriously ill children. Lauded by health professionals, child life specialists and pediatric patients, PC Pals make a significant difference in a sick child’s life. Research on similar programs has demonstrated that, more than providing communication, education and entertainment tools, computer access can be instrumental in reducing the isolation, hopelessness and dejection that hospitalized children often feel. PC Pals raise children’s spirits and distract them from pain.

Each PC Pal comes pre-installed with Starlight Starbright’s medical education and disease management programs. Used by hundreds of thousands of sick children each year, the programs provide medical information in a fun, engaging manner and empower children to better manage and cope with their medical conditions and confidently interact with medical professionals. Wired for Internet connectivity, PC Pals offer monitored email and chat programs that children use to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. Each laptop also provides direct access to Starbright World, a private, professionally moderated online community built to provide seriously ill teens with a support network and critically important sense of belonging. In addition, kids can better manage school assignments using the email, online research tools and bedside tutoring opportunities that PC Pals enable.

By hospitals request, PC Pals are pre-configured for immediate use, have a flexible design and address important hospital concerns, such as portability, security and easy clean-up/infection control. Ninety percent of those hospitals that currently have patient computers have no technical support. As a result, when computers break, there is no means by which to repair them. By contrast, PC Pals are centrally managed as a Starlight Starbright program, and therefore include a training and tech support package that minimizes downtime if a problem occurs. A replacement PC Pal is shipped within five days if tech support can’t resolve the problem.