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• Sim-Patient

Virtual Standardized Patient™

Standardized patients are commonly used at many U.S. medical schools to assess students' communication and diagnostic skills, which are crucial to good patient care. Students encounter patients with progressively more difficult medical conditions, and feedback is given on their performance.

RTI is working with medical educators to create applications to augment training and assessment of these skills. Our Virtual Standardized Patient (VSP) applications enable students to practice with numerous scenarios in a reproducible, objective learning environment prior to the challenge of actual patient engagement. Novice practitioners can practice taking patient histories and communicating with patients, receiving guidance and feedback throughout the interaction from an intelligent virtual tutor.

Supported by RTI's AVATALK™ and Sim Patient^TM technologies, the virtual patients display a range of emotions, illnesses, and environmental settings.

Why the Virtual Standardized Patient

Effective techniques for patient interaction are not always easy to teach using standardized patients. Actors can be hired and trained, but each actor can play only a few roles. Different actors must be hired to represent different ages, ethnicities, and genders.

The VSP supplements the use of trained actors, allowing students to practice such crucial skills as

• Keeping eye contact with the patient
• Using language the patient will understand
• Speaking slowly, clearly, and distinctly
• Using the patient's proper name
• Asking relevant diagnostic and follow-up questions
• Allowing time for the patient to respond
• Acting and speaking in a calm, confident manner.

This software can exploit available technology and can be easily upgraded or extended for new medical conditions, different patient types, and better psychological and physiological models. RTI's current efforts include developing a virtual standardized pediatric patient, which will provide clinicians with previously unavailable opportunities to practice communicating with children.