Metaverse Health

Posts Tagged ‘hansen’

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.