Virtual Patients

A few words about Virtual Patients
What's the use of Virtual Patients?
Information before treating the first patient
ISUD Virtual Patients

A few words about Virtual Patients

The term "Virtual Patient" is used to describe an interactive, computer-based simulation of real clinical scenaria used in medical practice, education or assessment. VIrtual Patient programs can be used by Trainees, Trainers/Tutors or Examiners.

These applications support and enhance medical education with the aim of improving medical care and simplifying issues having to do with medical education and assessment of learning progress. The applications are based on the Virtual Patient Standard (MVP) proposed by MedBiquitous, an Organization coordinating worldwide the use of free and open standards in medical education.

What's the use of Virtual Patients?

Virtual Patients are highly useful for they:

train users how to take correct clinical decisions with safety,
provide an exceptional educational tool promoting medical collaboration,
provide training so as to avoid MEDICAL ERRORS & MALPRACTICE in the future!
offer a learning process that can be addressed to all users at the same time but also focuses on each user separately,
are adjustable to the pace of each individual user,
protect the user's confidentiality

Information before treating the first patients

Starting with the first patient, one is found in a virtual labyrinth of knowledge. Once reading the scenario, the user is asked to choose the next step that might be a piece of history information or a diagnostic test or a therapy. Every new page has a title which usually appears at the top of the page. At all stages, there is some kind of message for the user. This message usually describes and explains the consequences of the decisions the user has taken until that point.

To cross a street within this labyrinth, one must click on one of the available options. There is also revision of the selected paths, multimedia material (pictures, videos, photographs, examinations) and a score counter always indicating the current user's score; with every choice mad in the labyrinth, the user may win or lose points (e.g. +3 (20) means that with the last choice the user has won +3 points and in overall has 20 points so far..

The kind of experience each user gains depends on the decisions taken with regard to which path s/he follows. These decisions have different impact depending on the itineraries one follows. The score can increase or decrease according to the answers provided. Wrong paths/itineraries may lead to dead-ends or to the end of the "game", as opposed to other paths/itineraries that are successful. Therefore, when entering the labyrinth, the user should think carefully concerning the options available, get informed about potential results and follow the directions and tips that have been given to him.

Good Luck!

ISUD Virtual Patients

Ιn collaboration with the Laboratory of Medical Informatics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (A.U.Th), ISUD moved forward presenting the first Urological Virtual Patients, integrated to electronic scenaria based on Problem-Based Learning (PBL), within the context of an ambitious lifelong program for learning and assessing applied knowledge, clinical rationale and professional attitude. The scenaria allow the Trainer to work with a Virtual Patient by having numerous contacts for examining him/her, choosing diagnostic tests and investigation methods, selecting different approaches and taking decisions on the therapeutic treatment of the case.

To be able to see the Virtual Patients, you have first to introduce for Username and Password the word imop.