Bringing heroes to sick kids

Hospitals can be scary for a child — unless you have a superhero on your side.

Molloy College junior Bobby Lenahan is bringing superheroes to hospitalized children with IV Hero, a decorated sleeve that goes over an IV bag. Each sleeve features a cartoon superhero, and children are told that the IV bags actually give them superpowers.

Lenahan, 20, said he was inspired by an article he read last year on Slate.com about kids who were terrified of magnetic resonance imaging scans, or MRIs, and had to be put under anesthesia for them — until the MRI machine was decorated like a pirate ship and the young patients were told they were going on an adventure.

An accounting major in Molloy’s business honors program, Lenahan began thinking about IV bags, and brainstormed with fellow members of the Entrepreneurship Club, which he co-founded. “They’ve been able to provide me with huge support,” he said. “They’re my go-to crew.”

Eventually he came up with the idea of telling young patients that they would be infused with “superhero juice” instead of medicine. “I ran … upstairs to the [Molloy] nursing lab,” Lenahan said, “and they loved it.”

He worked with the nursing department to make the sleeve functional for health workers — the final product has a flap that can be lifted so nurses can see the liquid inside the bag. Within a month he had the final design, featuring superheroes Super Sam and Super Sally.

“I designed it myself,” Lenahan said. “I took the dimensions of the IV bag and taught myself Adobe Illustrator. I found some characters online that I was able to use.”

In April he entered IV Hero in the New York Business Plan Competition, and took first place in the Long Island division in the health care category, and third place at the state competition in Albany. He won $1,500, and used the money to print more sleeves.

Last summer, IV Hero made its debut in a pilot program at Staten Island University Hospital, which is part of the Northwell hospital system. “We definitely saw a change in the kids,” said Carolyn Simone, the hospital’s manager of community education and marketing. “They were happy and smiling and more comfortable. It changed how the whole family looked at getting an IV.”

A plan is being developed to bring IV Hero to other Northwell Hospitals. Lenahan also sold 40 sleeves — for $20 — to South Nassau Communities Hospital for a pilot program there. The sleeves cost about $1 to make.

Lenahan said that IV Hero would eventually include another eight heroes. He also wants to create a sleeve that kids can draw on — because young hospital patients like doing so — as well as capes, hats and Band-Aids. “I’d like to bring as many superpowers as I can into the hospital,” he said.