1. TRAINING & SIMULATION
Serious Games – Saving Lives
Article by: David Wortley, Director, The Serious Games Institute
© TruSim, a division of Blitz Games Studios
Screenshot from Patient Rescue
Today’s Information Society faces many global health • Easy access to best practice knowledge.
challenges which arise directly or indirectly as a result of
improvements in the communications technologies which • Use of immersive and collaborative technologies for
enable us to travel further and more often, physically leveraging specialist expertise anytime, anywhere.
meet and interact with more people and be instantly
informed of events in distant places. Pandemics, an I believe that it is a growing and frightening reality that
ageing population, longer life expectances and lifestyle our world is likely to have too many people with too many
related medical conditions all place a growing challenge treatable conditions at too high a societal cost with too
to the provision of healthcare in a truly global society. few human resources equipped with the necessary skills
to effectively manage this situation. What can we do
In this demanding globally networked environment, about it ?
knowledge professionals from all disciplines have to
face new challenges created every day by almost This article considers a few technology innovations that
ubiquitous instant access to information via the internet. show potential for addressing these challenges.
Patients with uncommon medical conditions are now
able to equip themselves with more knowledge on 1. Telemedicine
diagnosis and treatment than their General Practitioner. The ever-improving bandwidth capacity and ubiquity of
wireless and fixed wire networks, coupled with better
Huge volumes of digital media are published daily. It has and more realistic video quality, now makes it possible
been said that students starting a technical 3 year higher to connect a patient with a rare or critical condition with
education course will find 50% of what they learn in their an expert medical practitioner to make the necessary
first year to be out of date by their third year. interventions at key times in key places. Telemedicine
extends the power of specialist knowledge to anywhere
What does all this mean for Global Healthcare ? in the world where telecommunications are available.
• Need for rapid and effective skill development and Webcams and modern generation mobile phones with
lifelong learning. video capability enable specialists to save lives almost
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2. anywhere in the world on demand. Whilst telemedicine
makes an important contribution to improving the power
and productivity of specialist expertise, there will inevitably
be a finite limit governed by the number of experts
available on-line at any one time.
2. Virtual Hospitals and Remote Sensors
A number of academic and medical institutions are
pioneering the development of virtual hospital simulations
in virtual environments such as Linden Lab’s Second Life.
These virtual environments can be used to train medical © TruSim, a division of Blitz Games Studios
practitioners and also inform and orientate patients on
hospital layouts and procedures. These applications can “Virtual Patient Generator Technology” developed by Trusim links
medical data to simulate physiological conditions
not only provide basic training and familiarisation without
using expensive and rare physical resources but they
also have the potential to extend specialist care way
beyond the boundaries of traditional healthcare spaces. The skills and techniques they have developed for the
demands of the video game market have been put to
The “Internet of Things” is a phrase used to articulate the excellent use in recreating highly realistic simulations of
ubiquity and power of remote sensors which, amongst patient conditions and the effects of medical interventions.
many other uses, can be used to monitor patient conditions This has important implications and benefits for global
24x7 for all 365 days of the year from anywhere in the healthcare because they are able to offer medical
world. practitioners the opportunity to practise critical decision
making for medical emergencies with highly realistic
virtual patients which respond physically and emotionally
as they would in real life.
Patient Rescue is designed to improve newly qualified
doctors’ recognition and assessment of the signs of
deterioration as well as practising effective intervention.
Failure to rescue deteriorating patients is recognised as
a key contributor to adverse outcomes in UK and US
hospitals.
Trusim’s work with health professionals and their pion-
eering of medical data linked to high-fidelity animations
has also been used to train paramedics on how to triage
casualties of a high street terrorist explosion. This is the
type of event which is very expensive and difficult to
© TruSim, a division of Blitz Games Studios simulate in the physical world.
Imperial College Virtual Hospital in Second Life
These technologies and techniques offer great promise
in making specialist knowledge more easily accessible
and delivering lifelong learning where and when it really
matters.
By combining the power of virtual world hospital
simulations with remote patient sensors, it is not difficult
to imagine aggregating similar patients located all over
the world and representing them as virtual patients all
in the same virtual ward and managed by the same
specialist healthcare team. Through the use of real-time
data visualisation and monitoring of patient condition, the
virtual healthcare team could deliver rapid response and For further information please contact:
intervention very cost effectively and almost on demand.
David Wortley
3. Serious Games for Healthcare Training Director
Trusim is the Serious Games Division of Blitz Games Serious Games Institute
Coventry University
in Leamington Spa. One of the largest independent
games companies in the world, Blitz Games develop Tel: +44 (0) 247 6158201
highly successful household entertainment games for Email: d.wortley@cad.coventry.ac.uk
consoles such as XBOX 360, PS3 and Wii as well as PC, http://www.seriousgamesinstitute.co.uk
smartphone and social networks.
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