Metaverse Health

Archive for September, 2008

There’s a small but growing group in Second Life called Healthcare Education. The group was founded by the University of Michigan’s Patricia Anderson (SL: Perplexity Peccable) and a seminar series has been organised for the 26th September at 7.00am SL time (Midnight on the 26th AET).

The event will be held on Health EduIsland and the first speaker will be Pathfinder Linden, providing a brief introduction to health in Second Life, and asking what healthcare educators most want from Linden Labs.

Patricia has supplied the itinerary:

The format will be:
– 7:00-7:30 – Pathfinder will talk for a half hour.
– 7:30-8:30 – We’ll break into small groups, talk and party, and gather our thoughts for an hour. During this time the “Rogue’s Gallery” will be on display (also known as Who’s Who in SL Health Education). We also have display space available. DrDoug has volunteered to put something up to start, and we can rotate displays.
– 8:30-9:00 – Pathfinder will come back and listen to whatever we’ve decided is most important to share with him. If you have personal observations to share, you may want to consider formalizing your thoughts in a notecard to drop in his inventory during the event.

Remember, to receive inworld announcements, please join the group Healthcare Education. If you can’t find it in search, you can find it in my Profile listing of groups: Perplexity Peccable.

Hope to see you all there!

I ran across the following promo this week:

“Stepping into Health” becomes Third in Popular “Stepping into Virtual Worlds” Series

The cost for this day-long conference is $79, and participants may register for the conference at www.steppingintovirtualworlds.org

One of Second Life’s main strengths is as a collaborative meeting / conference platform so it’ll be interesting to see the outcomes of this conference as far as getting the word out about the potential of virtual worlds for health professionals.

One MMO player’s perspective on addiction. A worthwhile read – nothing new or groundbreaking but it at least engenders some self-examination. On key piece of social research in the future will be work days lost to MMO game playing.
I’m aware of a few people who’ve called in sick to play World of Warcraft or Dungeons and Dragons Online – how about you?

Virtual Ability island continue their regular health-related events. This time, smoking cessation is the focus:

Moving toward wellness: Smoking Cessation
Tuesday, September 9
8:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. SLT
Virtual Ability Island

Carolinal Keats, Coordinator Healthinfo Island

A community of support is certainly a predictor of success in smoking cessation, so such initiatives, if sustained, could deliver substantial benefits.

When it comes to the use of virtual environments, the healthcare industry is no less prone to fall into marketing pits of doom than any other industry. Static data, presented in a slap-dash fashion like posters on a wall. Huge, unused buildings that serve no particular purpose, and the occasional video. This seems to be the standard fare presented by companies and organisations coming into virtual environments who are not sensible about use of the medium. Often, these folk would have been better served by a well-organised Web page than the mish-mash they present within virtual environments. Indeed, their attempts are distinctly reminiscent of the early days of the Web, before people got a handle on that medium.

It’s not all bad, however. A couple of companies and organisations have produced useful and significant services that are appropriate for virtual environments. They have clearly thought about how best to discharge the services they already provide to demographics containing the folks they previously had a great deal of trouble reaching. People who use virtual environments, and who:

a) are unable or unwilling to leave their homes to obtain health information or care;
b) suffer from chronic illnesses that require some maintenance by the patient that can be bolstered by health information or care delivered online;
c) are young, not requiring specific healthcare, but can benefit from information delivery.

One of the best efforts open to the public eye is Palomar West hospital, a venture by Cisco, Palomar Pomerado Health, and metaverse developers Millions-of-us. The Second Life version of the hospital, built before the real version, is an exact model of what you can expect to see in San Diego in 2011, to the extent that several rooms are fully kitted-out with the sort of equipment that will fill the real thing. The Second Life exhibit is quite interactive, and provides an excellent idea of how things might operate in reality. Cisco Systems will power the real hospital. A central, internal network will be created to support the operation of the hospital, from patient locations via RFID tags, to room temperature and lighting via bedside screens, to the robotic technology that enables surgeons to operate remotely and automated systems for diagnostic work. Incidently, when we wandered past the site to take a closer look, a research study was being conducted. It’s good to know that this virtual environment replica is useful not only for future patients, and public healthcare at that level of education, but also for medical and other professionals.

Another ongoing project that has proved to be successful is one put on by the CDC in Whyville. Whyville is a virtual scientific learning environment for kids aged 8 to 15 years old. During the influenza season in the real world, Whyvillians are also placed at risk of developing the “Why-flu”, which causes sneezing and red spots on the avatar’s face. Not only were kids given the chance to have their avatar inoculated prior to the Why-flu season beginning, during the season those who caught the flu had a chance to buy remedies from the pharmacy, which were time-limited, and which came at a cost. During the second round of the project in 2007-2008, Whyvillians were encouraged to invite their grandparents to come and be virtually inoculated also. Thus information was disseminated across several generations online, and no doubt further than that offline, to other family members, and from there into the wider population.

This year the CDC has teamed up with CIGNA to produce a healthcare island in Second Life.

“About 90% of what we’re doing with chronic disease management involves behavior change. We could do more for our patients who have diabetes, weight problems or hypertension by helping them relieve their stress and achieve better mental health.” This is what they hope to cover in the virtual environment.

We are yet to experience the island for ourselves, however given the success of the Whyville project, it seems that the CDC have an excellent idea of what it takes to sell healthcare information to the younger generation; it will be interesting to see what tack they take for older folk. Most people like to take their medicinal information with a spoonful of sugar – experience will tell whether games will be the sweetener required, or whether talks and general social interaction are the preferential nectar.

Another site of note: the Second Health hospital or Polyclinic, Second Health London in Second Life. In a similar fashion to the West Palomar site (though in less detail), the Polyclinic displays a 3D representation as it might exist in real life. The establishment can be toured, though perhaps the machinima made at the site in Second Life, with accompanying information, is more enlightening. Though an entire medical campus has been built, with signs denoting the areas in which GPs and specialists will see patients, the acute care clinic and diagnostic facilities, none of the detail of equipment or functioning of the clinic has been created.

Yet another fantastic use of virtual environments is exemplified by the folk over at Play2Train. A town and two hospitals have been fitted out to enable “Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), Simple Triage Rapid Transportation (START), Risk Communication and Incident Command System (ICS) Training”.”Play2Train provides opportunities for training through interactive role playing.”

For a quick round up of other nifty virtual doings in healthcare, visit this link.

There is a vast diversity of healthcare information that needs to be delivered, both to professionals and to the general public. Virtual environments may only slowly be coming into their own in this realm, however, there is hope for them yet.

Margaret Hansen from the School of Nursing at the University of San Francisco has written a review for the Journal of Medical Internet Research entitled: “Versatile, Immersive, Creative and Dynamic Virtual 3-D Healthcare Learning Environments: A Review of the Literature”.

It’s a comprehensive overview of health research and education in virtual worlds. Current players are covered as well as discussion of the challenges and opportunities virtual worlds present for healthcare professionals.

Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory is an interesting basis for part of the discussion and it encapsulates the challenges in arguing for virtual worlds as an education tool – complexity and compatability are two barriers to adoption cited by the theory and they are two critical challenges for virtual worlds as well.

As Hansen argues, until there’s significant empirical support for the tool it will be difficult to garner widespread acceptance of it. What’s encouraging though is the growing body of work looking at the issue and Hansen gives a hat-tip to the University of Technology Sydney for their support – collaboration is gaining momentum and it can only assist the quest for an empirical basis for virtual worlds healthcare education.

Thanks to Maged Boulos for the heads-up on this.