New Era in Medical Training Through Simulation-Based Training Systems.

摘要

The mission of the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) is to explore medical science and engineering technologies ahead of programmed research, leveraging other programs to maximize benefits to military medicine. One of its major research portfolios is Medical Simulation and Training Technology. The vision for this portfolio is to facilitate a paradigm shift in medical training, from a subjective mode of skills assessment to a curriculum-aligned, metrics-driven, objective system to assess proficiency of skills -- both cognitive and psychomotor from the foxhole to the operating room and beyond. Based on a strategic plan developed on input from a 70-person Integrated Research Team in 2000, our technical strategy is to identify and develop enabling technologies into components that can be integrated into SYSTEMS of simulation-based training, then assess them to determine the degree to which they transfer skills learned via simulation to the delivery of actual health care. Examples of enabling technologies include real-time in vivo tissue property measurement, haptics, tool-tissue interactions, graphics and visualization, learning systems, and metrics development. TATRC is funding and managing research in four broad categories: PC-based interactive multimedia, digitally enhanced mannequins, part-task trainers, and total immersion virtual reality. This presentation will identify examples of enabling technology projects as well as representative projects within these four categories, identify their goals, report on progress toward milestones and, if data is available from two studies underway, they will be presented.