Addiction, research, health in a virtual world
The December Student BMJ has an excellent overview of the growing use of Second Life for medical simulation.
The collaborative and immersive meetings aspects are also covered and although the article is pitched at non-virtual world users, it provides a balanced summary of goings-on to date.
A big thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.
Rather than assessing their students through a paper-based examination, or even by having real, live people come in to pretend to be patients, it is starting to become more common to hear of healthcare educators asking their students instead to use computer applications and tools featuring digitally-created patients.
There are a myriad decisions that need to be made surrounding patient care. Students need to be able to wield a large amount of technical data, be able to think well on the fly, and be able to make quick yet considered decisions as healthcare professionals. These digitally-created, or virtual, patients can assist in building these skills.
Though virtual patients look just like the avatars that represent actual people in virtual worlds, the virtual patients usually have either an artificial intelligence (AI) or a scripted backend behind them. As opposed to an AI, the scripted backend cannot make decisions itself – instead , it follows a decision tree that has already been set before the student engages with it.
Medicine
MyCaseSpace is a Web-based application which presents virtual patients to students at irregular intervals throughout the span of their course. Virtual patients may contact the student at any time of the day or night, through their computer, and request a clinical consult. The virtual patients use avatars to communicate visually with students; the speech of the virtual patients can be accessed in 13 different languages. These patients use a scripted backend for their interactions, the design of which was based on video-game decision trees.
The application can easily be updated and altered to include virtual family members of the virtual patient to make demands upon the students.
Critical thinking skills used to be tested by setting examination papers; some people believe that the current set of students, being more digitally aware, will respond better to a digital presentation. Others are of the opinion that modern students have an expectation that they will continue to receive paper exams, and may have trouble with digital resources.
Though it has not been proven that this method of assessment results in either better or poorer results for the students, the professors and tutors find the system to be most beneficial for them. The application collects, stores, and processes data generated by the students’ assessments, cutting down on time and tedium, and increasing accuracy, for the marking individual.
Nurses
“Nurse Island” has been set up inside Second Life by the Glasgow Caledonian University. Apart from the virtual representation of the university, built so that prospective students can learn to find their way around campus, the Nursing Skills Laboratory has been recreated and populated with virtual patients. These patients can be controlled either by an AI or by a tutor, and use text to speech synthesis rather than recorded voices.
The conversations held between patients and students are recorded, so that students can be debriefed later by a tutor. This facility will open early next year.
Paramedics
This Second Life project represents a partnership between St George’s, University of London and Kingston University.
Paramedic students will work in teams of three or four, and will encounter emergency scenarios in Second Life in which they will need to treat a virtual patients or patients. They will need to perform such tasks as checking the patient’s pulse, dressing wounds and administering drugs. They may also need to be able to use equipment that would typically be found in an ambulance, such as oxygen masks and electrocardiograms (ECG). After assessing and treating the patient, they must load the patient into the ambulance and set a GPS device to take them to the hospital.
On reaching the hospital, students then handover a set of patient notes to their tutor via email.
Emily Conradi, e-Projects Manager, says: “Paramedic students spend a lot of time in work placements, which can be based anywhere in the country, so it can be hard for the students to meet face-to-face with each other and with their tutors.”
CPR and emergency first aid
The Italian Resuscitation Council (IRC) headquarters in Second Life (to teleport there, click here) has been set up as a place that people can be trained and re-trained, whether they be instructors, medical professionals or laypeople.
The IRC training simulations for instructors and medical people would include simulations to improve and test teamwork, leadership and technical skills. The simulations would also impart knowledge concerning CPR and other emergency training procedures.
Some of the information directed at laypeople includes cardiac arrest prevention knowledge and basic life support information.
In conclusion
Effectiveness of learning is not the only reason to use a virtual world or virtual patients. If learning is not less effective than by using other methods, and there are other benefits to the virtual alternatives, they may still be well worthwhile.
Linden Lab have provided an update on their recent clamp down on mainland advertising in Second Life.
Now that we’re seeing less advertising, is it time for some social behaviour change? Would it hurt to have some positive health messages advertised around the grid? I’d love to hear your thought – what messages would you like to promote if widespread non-profit advertising were allowed?
There’s another new health project in development in Second Life – Karuna. It’s The focus is ‘HIV / AIDS education, outreach and support’ and it’s scheduled for launch on December 1st, World AIDS Day.
Partners in the project include AIDS.gov and the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS research, Community Outreach, Dissemination, and Education Office (CFAR). A centrepiece of the initiative will be a Garden of Experience where those dealing with HIV/ AIDS will share their experiences via photos, video, music and poetry.
The agenda for the 1st December (in PST / SL time) is:
Complacency is one of the key challenges with HIV / AIDS education, particularly in the developed world. Projects like this will hopefully garner some significant mainstream media interest and heighten the awareness of the issue amongst ‘at-risk’ populations – which is pretty much the whole population.
Find out more about Karuna here and we’ll post a SLURL when it’s available. Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.
Delivering health messages to the general public is difficult at the best of times. It’s tough to capture the attention of people when talking about health – unless it’s their area of expertise, most people don’t want to be bothered thinking about their health any more than is strictly necessary. Those who are healthy often take that for granted; those with known health problems often don’t want to have to think about having additional problems. Preventative medicine has not achieved high penetration within public view, let alone getting people to take good care of existing illnesses.
All this is true in the atomic world, where conventional means of education and advertisement have existed for decades. How daunting, then, is it to imagine trying to bring these messages to people through a new medium like digital environments? Even large companies with huge budgets and design teams have had difficulty conveying their messages to people through digital environments.
A large part of the solution lies in a statement that far easier said than carried out: use digital environments to their advantage. Designers need to find ways of conveying their ideas to users in a way that is enhanced by the digital environment. There’s too many examples of stark buildings with uncertain purpose, and montages of bits and pieces of information that could be better displayed and searched through using web pages, in existing health installations in digital environments – this money could have been better spent elsewhere.
One of the big advantages to digital environments is that information can be gathered by users interactively. A display that encourages an action to be carried by the user, and that engages the user, increases the likelihood that they will continue to peruse even static parts of your installation. Moderation is key – some interactivity in some displays is good, but too much can be overwhelming, and can detract from purpose. Also, there is nothing wrong with a bit of fun in health education, and a bit of interactivity can lend itself to the light-hearted, but again, there must be a point to it all, or you will quickly lose your audience.
So I had a bit of a think about the type of interactive display that I, as an end user, might find both useful and engaging, and also that I, as a programmer and animator, might have some ability to construct. This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list, or an indication of what I believe is most needed, it is intended to assist health care professionals and designers come up with their own notions as to what they might like to contribute to the building of their own installations.
One further note on information distributed:
It’s been my experience that the information available in health installations in digital worlds has either been insultingly simplistic (for example, the Second Life Main grid is for adults only, and I have seen plenty of information suited to a younger audience) or overly complicated and dense for members of the public. It would be nice to see more examples of grading of information, dispensed through a notecard system, in which the user can choose which grade to read at, and can choose to upgrade when their knowledge and understanding have increased.
Health education for public consumption is tricky. Digital environments are a fantastic way of reaching new niche markets and consolidating new ones. However, the techniques used in the atomic world cannot be simply transported into the digital – keep those in the atomic, if they are working well there. Find the new things that the digital world can do for you and capitalize on those.
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
Using virtual worlds to promote health and healthcare is the topic of the next installment of the popular “Stepping into Virtual Worlds” conference series, to be offered October 7th, 2008 in Second Life. Hundreds of people have attended this series, which began with “Stepping into History” in June and continued with “Stepping into Literature” in August. The series is sponsored by Alliance Library System and LearningTimes.
The day-long conference is open to the public, with more information available at http://www.steppingintovirtualworlds.org . It will take place entirely in the virtual world of Second Life.
During this conference, participants will make virtual “field trips” to some of the best and most creative locations that are using virtual worlds to promote health. During these field trips, they will be able to speak with those responsible for creating the simulations, and have time to explore them on their own. Among the field trips for this conference are Healthinfo Island, a health education simulation where visitors can test their knowledge of strokes by walking through a giant artery and destroying clots by correctly answering questions, and ToxTown, a typical American town where potentially dangerous chemicals can easily be seen.
In addition to the field trips, the conference includes:
· Keynote presentations by Randy Hinrichs, founder of 2B3D and developer of the “Medipelago,” a group of health related simulations in Second Life; and Ramesh Ramloll, creator of Play2Train, a virtual world simulator used to prepare healthcare professionals and others for crisis situations
· Table Talks on subjects such as “Healthcare Education and Advocacy in Virtual Worlds,” “Virtual World Health Librarianship” and “Using Virtual World for Training Medical Personnel.”
· A panel discussion, allowing participants to question and interact with a variety of experts in the use of virtual worlds in health and healthcare.
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.
Virtual Ability is an island in Second Life devoted to individuals with disabilities or chronic health conditions.
Initially funded by the USA’s National Library of Medicine, it now relies on individual contributions. It contains a number of discrete areas including training facilities for people with chronic health conditions. They even have their own orientation section which is well laid out and easy to follow.
You can contact Carolina Keats or Eme Capalini in-world for more information.
If you’ve got an interest in writing on serious games, this may be your thing:
CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Proposal Submission Deadline: September 5, 2008
Serious Game Design and Development: Technologies for
Training and Learning
A book edited by Dr. Janis Cannon-Bowers & Dr. Clint Bowers
University of Central Florida
Purpose and Goals of the Book
The use of gaming approaches for more serious purposes is not a new
phenomenon. Teachers have used board games, memory games, and others in
classrooms for decades. However, the advent of video gaming
technologies created a host of opportunities for people to use the
immersive, interactive, environments provided by such technology to
deliver pedagogical content in a simulated environment that is thought
to engender deeper learning in a more entertaining environment.
The use of video games for serious purposes was largely fostered by the
US military, which saw the low-fidelity simulation abilities of these
platforms as a low-cost way to deliver training. Buoyed by successes in
this market, developers have expanded their activities to a whole range
of serious applications, including K-12 education, advertising, and
social change, to name a few. The increasing use of these games has now
drawn the interest of various disciplines within the scientific
community, who seek to understand the nature of effective games and to
provide guidance for how best to harness the power of gaming technology
to successfully accomplish the more serious goal.
At this point, several serious games have been fielded, with varying
levels of success. Many of these games have not been formally
evaluated, while others have been, but the results have not been
published. Conversely, scientists are beginning to report results about
effective game elements, but there is not a clear conduit to get these
results to the developers who could most use them.
Our goal, therefore, is to create a volume that seeks to “bridge the
gap” between development and science. Specifically, we will approach
leaders in the game development community to share their successes and
the area where they could benefit from scientific guidance. Similarly,
we will invite prominent scientists to describe their current findings
and to provide their input on the future of the field.
Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Serious Games in K-12 Education
Serious Games in Postsecondary Education
Serious Games in Business and Industry
Serious Games in Training
Serious Games and Health
Serious Games as Social Tools
Research in Serious Games
Serious Games in the Military
Serious Games and Communication
Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before
September 30, 2008 , a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the
mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted
proposals will be notified by November 30, 2008 about the status of
their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected
to be submitted by February 1, 2009. All submitted chapters will be
reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled to be
published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the
“Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference)
and “Medical Information Science Reference” imprints. For additional
information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.
Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word
document or pdf) to:
Dr. Clint Bowers
Department of Psychology
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32801
sgbook@me.com
I came across a press release from the University of Houston about a health challenge being run entirely in Second Life. If you’re interested in earning some Linden dollars and learning something at the same time, sign up in-world.
I had a quick look around and it’s an interesting set up. The full details:
International Health Challenge seeks participants for obesity prevention research
The University of Houston department of health and human performance is launching an international effort to recruit 500 participants for a study promoting healthy dietary habits and physical activity. The study will take place entirely in the virtual world of Second Life (SL).
The project is part of the UH Texas Obesity Research Center’s (TORC) International Health Challenge, and offers an enjoyable way for participants to learn about preventing and treating obesity through education, skills training and outreach.
“This is an excellent opportunity to learn and practice these new behaviors in a virtual environment and in real life,” said Rebecca Lee, associate professor and director of TORC. “It’s also a great place to meet other avatars and share information and experiences.”
The TORC International Health Challenge in Second Life will provide opportunities for avatars to earn Lindens—the currency of Second Life—for walking on treadmills, riding bikes and trying new fruits and vegetables in Second Life. Participants compete to earn “Challenge Points” for their healthy behaviors. The country team that earns the most Challenge Points will win the International Health Challenge. Materials will be available in English, French and Spanish.
TORC was an awardee of the University of Southern California-Annenberg School for Communication’s Network Culture Project: Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge. TORC will develop space in Second Life, create games and interactive learning opportunities and reward avatars when they join the International Health Challenge and participate in health behaviors in Second Life.
“We hope to develop multi-national collaborations in SL to increase awareness, knowledge, skills and support for healthy living,” Lee said. “Reducing obesity is an international priority, and SL provides a portal to an international community.” Lee has conducted extensive research on the subject of obesity, in particular the neighborhood factors that may lead to obesity, such as availability and quality of fresh produce, and the quality and quantity of physical activity resources available in neighborhoods.
If you’re going to join on of the country groups, we’d love to hear from you.
Tech website TMCnet has a very useful overview of Vanderbilt University’s use of Second Life with their nursing students. For the seasoned observer there’s nothing particularly new but if you’re only starting to familiarise yourself with the area, it’s an excellent read. The article is useful in another way: it reinforces where health professionals are [...]
I’m a little daunted and excited at the same time to have been selected to write a book chapter on the use of virtual worlds in health-related pursuits. The book’s title is Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms and you can find out more about it here. It’s going to be [...]
This story originally appeared over at The Metaverse Journal. Over the past few months or I’ve followed the efforts of Dale Linegar and Stefan Schutt in establishing what is now known as The Lab. Dedicated to providing support and skills to 10-16 year olds with Asperger’s Syndrome, The Lab is already showing some great results. [...]
There’s another new health project in development in Second Life – Karuna. It’s The focus is ‘HIV / AIDS education, outreach and support’ and it’s scheduled for launch on December 1st, World AIDS Day. Partners in the project include AIDS.gov and the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS research, Community Outreach, Dissemination, and Education [...]
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 [...]
I spent some time in recent weeks with John “Pathfinder” Lester, formerly of Linden Lab and now Director of Community Development at Reaction Grid. The purpose was for a walkthrough of the Jibe platform, which is a merger of Unity3D and other technologies to make a more comprehensive learning experience. I hooked up with John [...]
This 9-minute piece is well worth a watch for any World of Warcraft player. It’s very humourous in places whilst still being respectful (somewhat) to the real issues of addiction that occur for a very small cohort of people. Enjoy: Thanks to WoW Insider for the heads-up.
Dr Suzanne Conboy Hill is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Brighton in the UK. She appeared on Radio National’s Future Tense program this morning, talking about her involvement in a virtual hospital project that I’ve mentioned here previously. It’s an interview well worth listening to for the [...]
Thanks to New World Notes, I’ve found out about a great resource for those interested in science and virtual environments. This list has a solid cohort of health-related sites – some I’ve covered previously and some others I’m now keen to investigate further. Obviously Second Life isn’t the only environment where interesting science is going [...]
A collaboration between Griffith University (Australia), Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand) and the University of Canberra (Australia), the Virtual International Day of the Midwife is in its third year (2009 and 2010 proceedings links). For more information or to express interest in presenting, check out the VIDM Wiki. The call for expressions of interest is as [...]
Here’s a great video showing the use of the Kinect to play World of Warcraft using a software framework called FAAST. After the initial demo there’s some useful discussion by the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies on its potential applications. Those applications are something discussed here regularly: rehabilitation and physical activity. Imagine [...]
This story appeared earlier in the week over at The Metaverse Journal under the title ‘Why Second Life is already second-best for education’. The announcement by Linden Lab in the past 24 hours that their discounting of pricing for educators and non-profits would cease in January 2011, has engendered the expected level of outrage. And [...]