The 2nd annual Serious Games Showcase at IMSH 2012 in San Diego was a huge success. Last year there were about 12 people presenting new and innovative technology. This year there were some 36 people presenting their products and innovations. Sem Lampotang from the University of Florida – Gainesville was showing off an impressive augmented reality simulator focusing on central line placement. One of the most impressive innovations, another augmented reality tool came from the University of Pittsburgh Simulation and Medical Technology R & D Center. Their augmented reality model superimposed a multilayer surgical anatomy field onto a mannikin-based simulator. Even more impressive than the graphics was the drug recognition system that used salinity of the fluid in the syringe as a proxy for actual medications. In this way learners must use proper and safe drug administration techniques when using this simulator. There is no reading the bar code label or simply verbalizing a given drug. Further, drugs are mapped to physiology. In this way if you give a drug like epinephrine the heart rate increases in the monitor, but you can also actually see the hear beating faster.
A number of impressive iPad and iPhone apps made their debuts as well, including a “Baby CPR” game for the iPhone by Transcension Healthcare LLC.. The hapics on this tool are great, right down to the back slaps which you do by delivering the back slaps to your phone as part of the choking infant sequence.
There were just too many new technologies, games, innovations and virtual environments to list here. This said virtual environments made a big splash at this years Showcase. Among those demonstrating virtual environments for clinical education were BreakAway LTD , CliniSpace, Virtual Heroes, SimQuest, and Lockeed Martin. Many of these environments were based on Unity platforms, but Virtual Heroes new HumanSim environment is running the Unreal game engine. The Unreal engine is the programing engine behind many top shelf entertainment video games.
A very special thank you to BreakAway Games LTD, Virtual Heroes, ClinicSpace, CAE Healthcare, Games For Health, and University of Pittsburgh Simulation and Medical Technology R & D Center for their generous support of this rears Serious Games Showcase. Stay tuned, we hear there are some exciting opportunities on the horizon for the Serious Games and Virtual Environments Track for IMSH 2013.