Design Visualisation

We use virtual worlds and other new media to help researchers, care providers and patients to visualise and explore future healthcare delivery scenarios.

Our simulated environments include interactive medical equipment, virtual patients and buildings of all kinds as well as architectural spaces of a highly realistic nature.

 For example the public engagement project known as “Second Health” incorporates a virtual hospital (polyclinic) and a series of ‘machinima’ documentary films to help describe a vision for future healthcare in London. The virtual hospital has received over 32,000 visits; time spent per visitor averages over 30 mins.

Second Health: Emergency and Specialist Care

Mr Brown suffers a heart attack and is taken by ambulance to a specialist heart hospital where skilled doctors perform a simple procedure to unblock his artery.

 

Second Health: Polyclinic Tour

Here we tour two Polyclinics, a standalone facility catering for a population of around 50,000 and one co-located with a local hospital catering for around 200,000. You can tour the second Polyclinic yourself in Second Life.

 

 

Second Health: Planned care

Mr Gaskin has a sore knee so he visits the polyclinic at his local community hospital where he sees his GP and gets an MRI scan and an immediate diagnosis in the same visit.

 

 

Clinical Scenarios: Medical Devices

Medical devices are common technologies that the majority of healthcare professionals must be familiar with, and yet device associated incidents account for a significant proportion of medical errors. Our research illustrates the use of Second Life as a novel platform for immersive clinical training. Participants were able to learn and practice in a complex but safe environment where they could make mistakes without risk to any real patients.