2. Using Virtual Simulations to Assess Situational
Awareness and Communication in Medical and
Nursing Education: A Technical Feasibility Study
Authors
Steven J. Anbro, Alison J. Szarko, Ramona A. Houmanfar, Amber M.
Maraccini, Laura H. Crosswell, Frederick C. Harris, Michelle Rebaleati & Luka
Starmer
University of Nevada, Behavior Analysis Program, Reno, Nevada USA
Renown Health, Reno, Nevada, USA
4. Introduction
In this research work a situation awareness and communication in medical and nursing
education is presented.
Situation Awareness explains human behavior in different complex systems.
This research is virtual simulation based and done by using audio/video recordings.
From 1987 to 2010, 46 simulation based researches were done on situation awareness in
medical and nursing field.(2 paper per year approx.)
From 2011 to 2018,it was extended to 49 research papers.(7 papers per year approx.)
In 1988, different methods were proposed for situation awareness in this field e.g.
audio/video recording, face expression recoding, eye tracking sensors etc.
TeamSTEPPS
A lot of patients died in USA due to lack of situation awareness.
6. Methods
A pre/post comparative analysis is proposed in this research work.
This research work is done at Medical School Campus using its 5-
standard patients rooms to run Virtual Reality(VR) simulations.
Total of 105(63 females,42 males) students participated in this
experiment out of which 49 were medical students and 56 nursing
students.
Then Pre-Training VR-Simulations were recorded.
After a Week Post-Training VR-Simulations were recorded.
7. Materials
Five HTC headsets were used.
One of the HTC contained eye tracking sensor.
Verbal responses managed from control room.
A physician played the role of a medical doctor in
simulation.
A medical technician behaved as a nurse in simulation.
All the students played role of patients.
8. Procedure
Participants entered the room and fitted with HTC vive VR
headsets.
They told to say “start” on visual prompt in headset.
22 students uses HTC headsets with eye tracking sensor.
All the procedure was done before training.
Then participants were trained to improve SA.
Rules of practice session were
No Talking
Only team leader may talk
All team members may talk
11. Results
Out of 10-verbal check back opportunity only 5&7 results
are in 50%.
They have estimated these results by finding Mean(M) and
Standard Deviation(SD).
For pre test M=1.72 and SD=2.49
For post test M=4.14 and SD=3.11
15. Conclusion
In this research work a VR simulation based approach is
presented for situation awareness in medical and nursing.
The high-precision is directly tied to VR.
In future it can be more effective by measuring different
expressions and reactions.
The cost of VR technology is continue to decrease. So it can
be used in everyday application for behavior analysis.
It can be used in training of different behavioral skills.