Innovation with Technology: The National Capital Area Medical SimulationCenter and the Medical PDA Initiative

The Uniformed Services University (USU) is developing a technological innovation for military medicine in the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center. The Center is the first single location to integrate the use of virtual reality technology, computer-controlled mannequins, and human simulated patients under one roof. The Center uses the setechnologies teach medical and nursing students, postgraduate trainees,and practicing health care providers about clinical situations they may encounter in their practice.

The clinical assessment laboratory is designed for teaching and evaluatingstudents in the basic clinical skills and history taking, evaluating students, communication and interpersonal skills. Here simulated patient encounters provide an ideal transition from the classroom to real patient contact. In the clinical exam area, students have the opportunity for live encounters that simulate specific challenges in outpatient,inpatient or critical care settings using human simulators as either simulated or standardized patients. Each of the 12 exam rooms is equipped with two video cameras and microphones that permit encounters to be recorded for subsequent analysis. Each room also contains a computer for each patient and a wall mounted computer for each student to use for preand post encounter documentation. The Surgical Simulation Laboratory uses virtual reality (VR) and a full-scale operating room mockup to provide highly realistic scenarios for surgical training. This area is the first site of its kind to be approved to use simulators instead of animals or cadavers for the surgical skills lab of the Advances Trauma Life Support (ATLS) certification course. Pericardiocentesis and diagnostic peritoneal lavage simulators were developed in the VR Lab. These two simulators are the first of their kind and are unique to the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center.

Another technological innovation in military medicine at USU is the Medical PDA Initiative. The goal of the USU Medical PDA initiative is integration of this technology in the clinical setting. The objectives of the initiative are:

Clinical Web Log (CWebLog) has been developed, maintained, and enhanced the over the last five years at USU. This is a web-based application that creates a database (http://cweblog.usuhs.mil/) is used to document USU student's clinical experiences. CWebLog has been adapted for use on the PDA. On PDA, our student can document their clinical experiences as they occur and send them to the CWebLog database server at USU via a PDAHotSync.