First preview images from our talented modeller/animator Alex Courtney.

We do this as often as possible to ensure we are on the right track.

Feedback from David;

Hi guys – looks brilliant. It’s actually identified a big gap I hadn’t thought of – a light above each bed. Doesn’t need to light up but it’ll be jarring for any nurse looking at it to not have it there. Sorry, should have realised that initially. Basically just a white box like this: http://www.micglobal.co.uk/images/rotaluxt8.jpg​

Great work Alex, really happy with it.

Here is a floor plan from David (pdf) that will be used for the design;

floor-plan-initial-prototype

Funding for the prototype was approved today.  Development starts immediately.

Software development will follow Agile Design principles. The Agile Manifesto is based on twelve principles:

• Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
• Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Working software is the principal measure of progress
• Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
• Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
• Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
• Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

Today I spoke to David on the phone and he is able to get a small amount of funding to get a prototype together.

After this we have emailed back and forth until we have all the information we require to put together an accurate scope document and quote.

Here is the scope document as pdf and also copied in below.  It’s less detailed than usual because it’s only a small prototype, and we have also worked on a lot of hospital related projects before so there is no need to go into detail about many of the models/processes required.

PUBLICDHScopeDocumentandQuote-SimulatedHospitalSuiteDemonstration

Requirements and features:

As received via email from David;

1. Approximate delivery date end of May 2014
2. Keeping options open to publish to range of platforms (tablets).
3. List of everything in room:

• Beds x 4
• Static avatars x 3 (male) in three of the beds
• Main avatar (male) in one bed close to window (a squarish room with four beds, two on north wall, the other two on south wall. West wall is windows out onto grass or trees (nothing fancy), East wall has a sink for handwashing, entrance door and off to the side a closed door to what would be the bathroom/shower. http://www.cgh.com.sg/Patients_Visitors/Admission/PublishingImages/classB1_large.jpg
• Oxygen outlet as per pic – one in each bed –  http://www.fbe.com.au/AirGuard/AirGuard_files/Airg0.jpg (just the outlet on the left is fine, don’t need the three) – it sits at back of bed as per this pic – http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/12/29/1325155080700/An-empty-hospital-bed-in–007.jpg
• Suction outlet as per pic here – one in each bed –  http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8709167.ece/BINARY/original/Hospital_bed.jpg – it’s the tubing and container at the left of bed lower down.
• Bedside table, one for each bed on right side (as per http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/12/29/1325155080700/An-empty-hospital-bed-in–007.jpg​ ) with a chair on the left side of the bed (so suction outlet will need to be higher up so chair doesn’t block it)
• A sample script with three sets of dialogue, each with three options for nurse and patient (all are sequential so the first nurse one links to the first patient one etc):

First dialogue:

Nurse:  Hello Mr Smith, how are you feeling / Hi Frank, how’s things? / Hello, I’m here to check your medications

Patient:  Hello, I’m doing ok thanks / Have we met? / Ok, are you a nurse?

Second dialogue:

Nurse: I’m just going to review your medications / It’s 10am so it’s medication time / Ready for your pills?

Patient: I seem to rattle with pills / Already? I only had some a couple of hours ago / I’ll need some more water please.

Third dialogue:

Nurse: Do you understand the pills you are taking? / They’re due at 10am, I just checked / No problems, I’ll grab you some water

Patient: I know I take a heart pill.. / Ok, but it seems a bit soon… / Are there any biscuits too?

Online example:

An similar example of a virtual hospital room (made by Oztron for CIT) can be found here;

http://cit.oztron.com/guest/

Work Summary:

Quote:

In terms of telling a story and making decisions through game play we plan to try something similar to the following style of chat, which is used in the Bioware games and called a dialogue wheel.

Over the past few years we have been investigating the various ways simulations and serious games are being used for education and training.

David has been tracking a lot of projects and developments at Metaverse Health.

We have been working on a wide range of simulations and serious games at Oztron.

The question here is – what has worked, and what do we want to try to do in the future?

We want to create something that engages young people like modern video games – we want to take the best the entertainment industry has to offer and use it to create better learning experiences.

We want learning to be more of a natural experience, where you learn by being placed in situations where you make decisions(good or bad) and see the consequences – not simply remembering the right answers.

We want instant, tailored feedback, which ensures a deep understanding of topics before progress is recorded.

We want embedded UX design which ensures usability regardless of digital literacy.

The Aesclepia patient bots were developed by Oztron Media for Monash University, for inter-professional learning between pharmacy and medical students.
Students interview the bots in pharmacy student or medical student groups, then discuss with the other group what diagnosis they have arrived at and why.

A few notes;

• Visually appealing.
• One thing this project has struggled with is training the AI bots – which requires that both pharmacy and medical students trial the software extensively.  Getting large numbers of students with free time in these areas is challenging.
• We need to look at alternate chat systems if we are to use a more natural chat style of learning.

David and I met in Sydney for a brief initial discussion about what this project might entail.

Discussions included what David was hoping to get out of the project as well as what we were currently doing and would like to be doing in terms of technology.

David is interested in being able to run multiple scenarios at once to simulate the stress of making decisions in a real hospital environment.

We both left knowing that it’s the beginning of a very long process and agreed to continue the discussion via email/phone.