Arts in Health: Digital storytelling

Summary

Digital story work is deep listening. Stories can be told by patients, relatives or staff about their first hand experience.

Content

What is a digital story?

Digital stories are voice recordings put together with images to create a short video.

The model has three basic principles:

• It is a 1st person story.
• It is always short – usually under 3 minutes.
• The storyteller remains the director of the story – it is co-produced.

Why we make them?

• To help the teller process what is happening to them
• To communicate and share best practice
• To advocate and improve our practice

In Swansea Bay Health Board, digital storytelling is our main method of gathering feedback stories. Digital patient stories are ideal for helping people get their voices heard in a way that leads to learning and service improvement. The stories are very memorable and build empathy in the listener which leads to changes in practice. They share some examples.