Virtual technology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, is allowing nurses to interact as avatars with each other and with patients using the website Second Life.
Vanderbilt was given $1.6 million by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create and launch the project through the agency’s Nurse Education Technologies program, reports The Tennessean. Right now, the project is only a pilot while the university conducts research.
In the Second Life program, Vanderbilt University was built on its own island, with a nursing home, residential trailer, and outpatient clinic that duplicates the Eskind Diabetes Center in Nashville. Hospital plans and photos were loaded into the program to create an exact copy of the real-life facility.
Nurses who experienced the pilot program thought it worked out well. Patient visits were easy because patients were given a questionnaire to fill out in advance so that nurses had a head start on the prep work for their virtual visit.
According to Vanderbilt, the university plans to use the Second Life program as a teaching tool with the nurses. It may eventually expand the program in such ways as communicating with patients in remote locations, giving patients with mobility or transportation issues the opportunity to receive a consultation from a physician without leaving their home. Telephone and teleconferencing can be used to communicate between the Second Life avatars and patient records could also be accessed through the program.
As a nurse, how could this virtual program help or hinder you? Let us know in our comment section.
April 1st, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Wow, very interesting post. I hope they don’t spend too much time/money on this project, because honestly only real patient interaction will fully prepare a nurse for what he/she is going to see in real life. Although, these virtual programs and virtual patients could be useful for first and second year nursing students before entering the hospital.
May 12th, 2011 at 8:54 am
Why even waste the money on a 2nd life like environment? A setup with programs like skype or yahoo or gchat works just as well with real humans behind the camera. This type of setup is already going on in the medical tourism industry, and at the rate hospitals are cutting costs, next fad will be to outsource avatars to countries like India or South Africa. Nonetheless, a concept to watch in the future as technology keeps improving.
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August 2nd, 2011 at 12:05 pm
I would love to see programs that help nurses and nursing students improve their assessment, pharmacology and time management skills. Offer these interactive online games/programs to students and/or schools of nursing for a reduced cost so the usage would be multiplied. As an instructor of nursing I am always looking for creative ways to increase their “real-world” skills.
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January 12th, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Good post. Thanks for the heads-up.
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