Netcoaching instead of hospitalisation

NoTube offers services to parents and professionals affected by children with early eating disorders, particularly tube dependency. This condition means a child relies on a temporary feeding tube without any medical need or cause. The University Children’s Hospital Graz, Austria, focuses on tube weaning and has more than 20 years of expertise with more than 1,600 success stories – but travel to the clinic and the long hospitalisation is costly. A start-up is now tackling the problem by offering help over the internet: NoTube bridges the geographical distance between the patient and the medical experts in Graz.

 

NoTube is a Swiss/Austrian spin-off of the hospital in Graz, founded by CEO Samuel Scheer from the University of St Gallen and the two directors of the psychosomatic division of the Department of Paediatrics at the hospital. With innovative and effective counselling over the internet, directed by the medical experts in Graz, families now do not need to travel to the clinic to receive treatment.

 

After a video analysis, leading to a diagnosis and an evaluation of the child’s condition, families receive a highly individualised consultation via the internet that guides them through the process. Parents can thus wean their children off the feeding tube in the familiar surroundings of their homes with daily expert assistance from Graz. The long-term success rate of this treatment method is 94.6 percent.