Flickr Diaporama

02 July 2008
11am SLT
tinyurl.com/6cb8mh

The Future of Healthcare in Virtual Worlds
Moderator: Dave Taylor, Imperial College London
SL: Davee Commerce
dave.taylor@imperial.ac.uk

Panel:
John Lester (Pathfinder), Linden Lab
Dan Hoch, Neurologist, Massachussets General Hospital
Dr Maurice Slevin, London Oncology Clinic
Shireen Lewis, Strategic Planning and Innovation, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Maria Toro-Troconis, Senior Learning Technologist, Imperial College London
Victor Cid, Senior Computer Scientist, National Library of Medicine, NIH, HHS
Randy Hinrichs, CEO 2b3d
James Kinross, Surgeon, Imperial College London

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FURTHER DETAILS
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James Kinross, Surgeon, Imperial College London
BSST Imperial College
Head of Department: Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham
Programme Lead, Virtual Worlds and Medical Media: Dave Taylor
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The department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology at Imperial College first entered Second Life in 2007.

Initial work focused on the development of social platforms that would inform health policy within London’s National Health Service (NHS). The aim was to create health infrastructure and treatment pathways of the future that patients and medical professionals could experience virtually. This quickly expanded into consultation meetings and the creation of the Second Health islands (www.secondhealth.org.uk). As the pace of real world health reform quickened, so did the project. We are now working on creating virtual care networks across a simulated london borough.

Surgical simulation and education have formed the basis for much of the research within the department. Therefore, reserachers are now exploring the feasibility of Second Life as an educational platform for training medical professionals. This has initially focused on team training within the operating theatre environment, but it is seeking to explore the unlocked potential of virtual worlds in the fields of patient safety and undergraduate education.

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Maria Toro-Troconis, Senior Learning Technologist, Imperial College London
Game-based learning for virtual patients in Second Life
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This project aims to develop an effective model for the delivery of virtual patients following a game-based learning approach in Second Life.
The four-dimensional framework described by De Freitas and Martin (2006), plus the learning types described by Helmer (2007), as well as the different aspects of emergent narrative described by Murray (1997) have provided the basis for the design of these game-based learning activities for virtual patients under two different categories: context and learner specification, and narrative and modes of representation.

Phase I of this project focused on the delivery of a virtual patient in the area of Respiratory Medicine following a game-based learning model in Second Life. A pilot was carried out in March 2008 with 43 students. The feedback received has informed the development of Phase II which incorporates a multi-patient approach. Five virtual patients suffering from different respiratory problems, such as Asthma and COPD have been implemented. The same narrative and Activity Model is applied for all these patients including different modes of representation. The learner is asked to make decisions based on current information and acquires new information as a result of different decisions. Phase II will be released in August 2008.
A web world environment has been implemented consisting of a three-tier architecture based on J2EE’s Model View Controller (MVC) design pattern – tier 1: web-server; tier 2: application server; and tier 3: database. This model accommodates the delivery of a one-to-many relationship between the user/student and several virtual patients.

For more information please contact Maria Toro-Troconis: m.toro@imperial.ac.uk
www.elearningimperial.com
SLURL: slurl.com/secondlife/Imperial%20College%20London/150/86/27/
Demo on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=WnPYhSbSABA

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Dan Hoch, Neurologist, Massachussets General Hospital
::::Massachusetts General Hospital Relaxation Response Study in Second Life::::
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Do you enjoy using Second Life to communicate with others? Are you interested in learning about stress reduction techniques? Are you able to travel to downtown Boston?

We are recruiting healthy people and their Second Life Avatars to take part in a research study. The study involves teaching the Relaxation Response within Second Life. The Relaxation Response is a form of stress reduction therapy.

The eight week study comprises 8 training sessions in Second Life, each lasting 60 to 90 minutes. All participants will receive a Razer Piranha headsets to be used in the study and kept after the study ends. Additionally, study participants will be given $25 toward travel expenses to the Massachusetts General Hospital. The study does not involve any medication or blood draws.
If you are interested in participating, please send an email to RRSLStudy@partners.org or call 617-643-6240. You may also IM our in world contact, Halton Alsop.
or check out the study web page at:
www.connected-health.org/programs/second-life/center-for-…
[[Benson-Henry Instituet for Mind Body Medicine -- Center for Connected Health -- Department of Neurology]]
:::::Questions?:::::
Our plot will be staffed by a member of our research team during the following times:
Monday June 30th 9a-5p PST
Tuesday July 1st 9a-5p PST
Wednesday July 2nd 9a-1p PST
Thursday July 3rd 9a-1p PST
Thanks for listening to our principal investigator Dr. Dan Hoch discuss healthcare in virtual worlds during the SL5B speaker series!

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John Lester (Pathfinder)
“Linden Lab’s Perspective on Healthcare in Second Life: Cultivating Ecosystems and Strategies for Success”
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Pathfinder Linden (RL: John Lester) currently serves as Linden Lab’s Boston Operations Director, coordinating the growth of Linden Lab’s East Coast presence. He also leads Linden Lab’s Proactive Education and Healthcare Mentoring Program, acting as a mentoring resource and academic evangelist for people using Second Life for teaching, academic and healthcare research, medical education/simulation, and scientific visualization. Pathfinder will talk about Linden Lab’s perspective on healthcare applications in Second Life, the critical connection between the healthcare and education communities, and future visions of how healthcare might best leverage virtual worlds.

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Randy Hinrichs, CEO 2b3d
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Medipelago and our partners are beginning a new era for professional societies in the digital immersive 21st century. We believe social networking in 3D spaces changes everything. So, we are offering access controlled 3D peer spaces and scalable virtual rentals for your business meetings, research collaborations, and educational courses. We have a simple mission: move photons, not people and use more silicon, and less carbon. It is less costly to meet in an immersive digital world, and its more flexible to use 3D software to make you productive, responsive, and motivated.

2b3d offers information services that feature 3d meeting spaces, collaborative environments and virtual real estate rentals to individuals, companies, professional societies or groups. We leverage virtual worlds and social networking to bring professionals together in a single immersive location. Our services help to reduce travel costs and human resource downtime. At 2b3d locations, you meet peers, access current research, hold conferences, working groups and collaborate with people on the leading edge in your field. Our mission is to build robust information service solutions with innovative tools to advance productivity, tell a story and create a rich environment for you to gather with colleagues and partners.

Wednesday june 11th, 12 PM SLT, it was the unveiling of Andra Renard’s Amino World Exhibit on ACS Island.

Amino World is an interactive and educational display that helps students identify amino acid residues in proteins.

Each amino acid has a distinctive side chain (R group) with special functions in a protein. For example : lysine has an alkaline amine that helps a protein bind to the acidic phosphates of DNA.

The Amino World exhibit is organized in five peptides, each composed of four amino acids of related structure.

To identify an amino acid, click the button in the tower nearby, or click an R group within the molecule. The R group will announce its name and fly out at the avatar. The avatar can then manipulate the R group until it disappears (in one minute) or copy the R group into one’s own inventory.

To visit : SLURL

Source

And … we have now easily proteins in SL with the  Hiro Sheridan’s Sculpted Protein Generator

Ex : cholinesterase scupltie texture  

Source

According to TIMESonline, Virtual reality is the latest trend in medicine.

Scientific Research and Medicine are growing in Second Life.

Second Life & Virtual Worlds for Academic Healthcare & Education

It is possible to “play” with virtual patient.

Emerging Technologies in Nursing and Nursing Education

Virtual Nursing Education in Second Life

“This is one of the areas that training for RNs is occurring in Second Life, a virtual world.
Students also apply theory by creating and manipulating 3D objects.
Planned meetings with the numerous support groups are used to increase the students awareness and empathy of those with health issues.
Students also experience real people with different cultures, nationalities, and languages in this virtual world.”

HUD are a great help to personnalize simulations in a global digital world.

Well … after, doctors, and nurses, it’s time to pharmacists to learn and practice in digital world. And the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Pharmacy have started a program.

• Pharmacy Patient Case Studies in Second Life
• Second Life may put Pharmacy students on fast track

The School of Pharmacy installation is on UNC V, but the sim is currently restricted to School of Pharmacy faculty and students.

Uskala Hidayat is the builder of the place.
Many thanks to him to let me access to this sim under construction.

The Family Practice Center is a clinical pharmacy center to educate patient to theirs chronical diseases like diabetes.
The machinima in the building is of a doctor patient interview.
There is also diabetes patient information , diabetes uizz, clinical cases.
More will come with a second level : a smoking cessation clinic.

Nearby, is the hospital with his Neonatal Care Unit. Another build in progress.

More in a Flickr album.

Agenda (SL Time):

11:00 AM Welcome and introduction to iVAS

James Kinross (Co-Chair): Lancelot Spitteler

Julian Leong (Co-Chair) Julian Nikolaidis

- Imperial College London, UK.

11:10 AM Keynote

Professor LeRoy Heinrichs - Stanford University Medical Media and Information Technologies (SUMMIT), USA.

11:40 AM Eye tracking in surgery

Mr. Marios Nicolaou

- Plastic Surgery SPR, St. George’s Hospital, UK.

12:00 PM Building a surgical robot

Dr. Mitch Lum and Hawkeye King

- BioRobotics laboratory University of Washington, USA.

12:20 PM Closing remarks

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang

- Imperial College London, UK

12:30 PM Questions and networking

And thanks to Kate Miles / Milesy Mighty, the Conference Manager, for the organization

Agenda/program, help desk (free Tshirt !), and the photos of the users / speakers.

The audience

The speakers

Eye tracking systems :

- Nanodave - Eye tracking Real MISH (video)

- Dr Marios Eye Control by G Mylonas (video)

No link with ‘2nd Life’, only some few cool things about 3D healthcare online. 

• Games for Health 4th Annual Conference

This will be May 8-9, 2008 Baltimore MD.

A part will be of course about virtual worlds and health ….

Details of the core conference are at http://www.gamesforhealth.org

• Sophia’s garden

Healing in Community™Online is a virtual world that combines the richness of real-life collaboration with online learning to help families of children with life-threatening and chronic conditions harness the power of community to address all of their needs.

A Flickr set, a Slideshare space, aaaand ….. an extension in a virtual world.

Is it There ? Need to investigate.

 Click on the image to see the video.

Ref : http://www.sophiasgarden.org/

• Mediteca - Medical Clinical Simulator 3.0

A spanish work : demo in flash online.

http://www.medicalsimulator.net/

• Pulse!   The Virtual Clinical Learning Lab

The most expensive serious game is a healthcare simulation of 
10 millions US$.

Here is the video of demonstration.

Not only expensive … impressive and beautiful !

Ref : http://www.sp.tamucc.edu/pulse/home.asp

I have read about this project that it is a waste of money and necessarily of time and energy. Well, we need to remember what Aimee Weber say about Second Life : “it’s a theme park”.

Here the theme is a “healthcare hotel”. It’s like the Aloft hotel experience : a test and demonstration 3D space.

The sim and the building are designed. Of course, the car park is too small. They are always too small. But the map is studied. Looking at, it is obvious that it’s a copy of a (in construction) real building. I love the access for the heavy lorries to the logistic services and the pharmacy. Well done !

Scan at the bed in the patient room

The Electronic Medical Record on the wall

Inside the hospital, the spaces to visit are limited to the hall, the patient room, and an examination room. That’s enough for the demonstration.

The Palomar West Hospital RFID Wrist Band

The visitor is guided during all his visit since the moment he wear the “Palomar West Hospital RFID Wrist Band” on his left forearm. All is designed for demonstration and live experience and it’s well done.

The first time  I’m gone there, at the opening, I met Knoh Oh and MB Chevalier. A great pleasure.

Next times I come, it was always someone on the sim visiting. What I call a success !

Interactive environment displays IBM’s vision for consumer-driven healthcare

Cisco announce the launch of the ‘Hospital of the Future’ in Second Life. Working with Palomar West Hospital, the largest health system provider in Southern California, they have created a healthcare campus to showcase the foresight of PalomarWest and the Cisco Connected Health vision.

The official ribbon cutting ceremony was this 25 feb 2008 at 08:00 AM SLT, at the PalomarWest Hospital Island(SLURL)!

Source : Cisco blog 

 Need to go there to have a look ! Great !
An hospital, a pharmacy …
Source : CNN (copy and paste below)

IBM (NYSE: IBM) debuted at HIMSS®08 its newest island in Second Life: IBM Virtual Healthcare Island. The island is a unique, three-dimensional representation of the challenges facing today’s healthcare industry and the role information technology will play in transforming global healthcare delivery to meet patient needs.

The island supports the strategic healthcare vision that IBM released in October 2006, entitled, Healthcare 2015: Win-Win or Lose-Lose, A Portrait and a Path to Successful Transformation. The paper paints a picture of a Healthcare Industry in crisis — of health systems in the United States and many other countries that will become unsustainable by the year 2015. To avoid “lose-lose” scenarios in which global healthcare systems “hit the wall” and require immediate and forced restructuring, IBM calls for what it defines as a “win-win” option: new levels of accountability, tough decisions, hard work and focus on the consumer.

The IBM Virtual Healthcare Island is designed with a futuristic atmosphere and provides visitors with an interactive demonstration of IBM’s open-standards-based Health Information Exchange (HIE) architecture. Working with project leads in the U.S., the island was designed and built by an all-IBM-India team.

Starting from the patient’s home, avatars create their own Personal Health Records (PHRs) in a secure and private environment and watch as it is incorporated into an array of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems that can be used at various medical facilities. As they move from one island station to the next, they experience how the development of a totally integrated and interoperable longitudinal Electronic Health Record (EHR) is used within a highly secured network that allows access only by patient-authorized health systems and family members.

Patient avatars arrive and are welcomed at the Central Park and then visit a Central Information Hub, where IBM’s view of the healthcare industry and the power of information technology to transform it are presented. An amphitheater on the Hub’s second floor provides an area that can support virtual meetings, complete with a large video screen and accompanying slide presentation on IBM’s HIE architecture and the positive impact that this technology can have in the transformation of the Healthcare Industry.

Visitors can then walk, fly or use “transporters” to visit the various island stations:

– The Patient’s Home: In the secure environment of a private home, patient avatars can initiate a PHR and populate it with their personal health characteristics and clinical history, accessed and downloaded from physician EMR data. They can also establish privacy and security preferences as well as health directives. The ground floor demonstrates secure messaging with health systems and activates the initial PHR. Using a transporter to move upstairs, patients use home health devices to take weight, blood pressure and blood sugar readings in the privacy of a bedroom, further incorporating this information into the PHR, which is shown on presentation screens.

– The Laboratory: This stop offers laboratory and radiology suites to help avatars extend their understanding of the benefits of HIE. Here, patients can check in at a Patient Kiosk and have blood work and radiology tests performed. The use of EHRs — revealing only appropriate portions of the PHRs — shows how consumers can also benefit through cost and time savings.

– The Clinic: Patient avatars transport or walk from the Lab to the Clinic, where a welcome from their primary-care physician awaits. A combination of scripting and information screens supports simulation of a patient exam, after which an electronic prescription is generated, and the continued development of the EHR is explained on nearby screens.

– The Pharmacy: Here, avatars can check in at a Patient Kiosk that simulates the verifying of drug information. They then receive their prescriptions and update their PHRs/EHRs with new medication data. The HIE architecture demonstrates how use of PHR/EHR technology can prevent consumers from purchasing medications that are contra-indicated given the medicines they presently require, as well as alerting them about potential drug-to-drug interactions. The PHR/EHR is again updated. — The Hospital: In this futuristic, three story structure, avatars arrive for a scheduled visit with a specialist. Physicians’ offices, patient rooms and exam rooms are all simulated here.

– The Emergency Room: Avatars can chose to experience a virtual emergency by “touching” a specially scripted control. This engages a medical episode and a ride on a fast gurney directly into the private and secure emergency treatment area, where a special screen is programmed to reveal the full incorporation of the PHR to ensure proper treatment.

“We are pleased to offer our IBM Virtual Health Island as a tool for our healthcare customers and our worldwide sales force. The island allows each healthcare stakeholder to envision how the total system can be affected by intercession at each juncture of the healthcare delivery process,” said Dan Pelino, General Manager, IBM Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry. “We believe that the use of our new virtual world provides an important, next-generation Internet-based resource to show how standards; business planning; the use of a secured, extensible and expandable architecture; HIE interoperability; and data use for healthcare analytics, quality, wellness and disease management are all helping to transform our industry.”

IBM’s Healthcare & Life Sciences (HCLS) Industry will continue to develop the new island in months to come. The island can perform as a virtually “always on” demonstration tool for IBM’s sales personnel. A video version of the island is also under production.

IBM believes in the significant promise of virtual-worlds technologies far beyond today’s usage: the next evolutionary phase of the Internet. IBM is helping clients and partners to conduct business inside virtual worlds and to connect the virtual world with the real world through a richer, more immersive Web environment.

Second Life is a 3D online world created by Linden Lab, a company founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, to create a revolutionary new form of shared 3D experience. Last October, IBM and Linden Lab announced their intent to jointly develop new technologies and methodologies based on open standards that will help advance the future of 3D virtual worlds.