By Katie White, MD
The 5th Annual Serious Games and Virtual Environments Showcase and Arcade at IMSH 2015 in New Orleans, LA was a success! With over 300 attendees and 21 entries, the event continues to attract exceptional talent from around the world. Given the growing interest every year, we moved into a larger room and through a generous sponsorship , the Society for Simulation in Healthcare Serious Games and Virtual Environments Special Interest group was able to continue the tradition of providing libations and sustenance for gamers, and the curious in attendance. Dr. Eric B. Bauman, one of the founding members of the Serious Games and Virtual Environments Special Interest Group was featured in the IMSH conference show-daily. Bauman provided and overview of the serious games movement from a clinical education perspective.
Awards were given out to the top two entries in each of four categories: Academic – Student, Academic – Faculty, Commercial – Small or Emerging Company, and Commercial – Large Company. There were 4 judges on this year’s panel: Gerald Stapleton, MS, Director of Distance Education for the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Medicine; Beth Bryant, from Games for Health; Jeff Taekman, MD, from Duke University and one of the “godfathers” of the Games Arcade and Showcase; and Katie White, MD from the Iowa City VA Medical Center. They evaluated entries with respect to their innovation, the implementation of the learning goals and objectives, the vision the developers had for where their game would contribute to health care education, and the presentation of the user interface.
The following awards were presented at this year’s awards ceremony on January 13, 2015 at the Tuesday plenary session for IMSH 2015:
Student
Winner: A Novel Computer Screen-based Simulator for Defibrillator Skills Training – Joshua Ferge, University of Colorado
Faculty
Winner:
Using a Game-Based Simulation to Complement a Face-to-Face Medical Education – Gary Hardee, University of Texas System
Runner-up:
Inter-professional Teamwork Training with TeamSTEPPS Virtual Teams – Rachel Umoren, Indiana University/Ball State University
Small Business or Corporation
Winner:
SimX: The First Augmented Reality Medical Simulation Platform – Ryan Ribeira
Runner-up:
DecisionSim – Presented by Bob Yayac
Large Business or Corporation
Winner: Online Standardized patient interface by Breakaway Games – Presented by Walter Cheek
Runner-up:
I-Human Patients with Dynamic DDx: Cloud-based Simulated Patient Encounter Platform for Advanced UME, GME, and Experienced Physicians – Presented by Norm Wu
The 6th Annual Serious Games and Virtual Arcade & Showcase will be held at IMSH in 2016 in sunny San Diego. If you have a serious game or virtual environments being used for clinical education do not miss next years event!
