Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center
Duke University Medical Center
Box 3094
Durham, NC 27710

Phone 919-684-3661
Fax 919-684-6251

Simulation Center Brochure

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Though patient simulators are used primarily for educational research and practice, they also have many applications in cognitive engineering and human factors research. Simulators can be used to test new equipment, theoretical models, training, or procedures before they are implemented in clinical environments. This approach (1) allows researchers to assess performance of the new tool or process in a controlled environment that can simulate extreme or rare conditions that may be difficult or unethical to replicate with real patients; and (2) reduces risk to patients by placing an additional layer of testing, analysis, and subsequent refinement between early design stages and clinical evaluation.

In this presentation, we review applications of human patient simulation in patient safety and human factors research. We will describe two specific projects (one recently completed and one currently underway) conducted by the Duke Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center. We will also present some of the limitations and challenges of research using patient simulation.

Croquet: A New Open Source Toolkit for Developing Media-Rich Multi-
User Collaborative Simulations.

Our featured speaker is Julian Lombardi, Assistant Vice President Academic Services and Technology Support, Duke University Office of Information Technology.

Croquet is a new open source software development environment for creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications for education, research and training. It features a peer- based network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation between multiple users on multiple devices. Using Croquet, software developers can create and link powerful and highly collaborative cross-platform multi-user 2D and 3D applications and interactive simulations - making possible the distributed deployment of very large scale, richly featured and interlinked virtual environments.