Using Virtual Simulations to Assess Situational Awareness and Communication in Medical and Nursing Education: A Technical Feasibility Study

ABSTRACT

Communication and situational awareness, among other “human factors,” are critical skills needed within high-reliability organizations (HROs). HROs are challenged to develop an effective methodology for the systematic assessment of these skills. Virtual reality (VR) simulation technology offers a promising approach to meet this challenge. By utilizing a verbal coding procedure in tandem with eye-tracking metrics, we conducted a technical feasibility study to assess the impact of an interprofessional training (TeamSTEPPS®) on communication accuracy and observing responses among medical and nursing students in a virtual simulation. The results suggest that communication accuracy significantly improved as a result of TeamSTEPPS® training. These findings and changes in situational awareness among individuals are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual reality
• simulation
• communication
• situational awareness
• medical education

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the following individuals for their significant contributions to this study: Christopher Lewis (University of Nevada, Reno Department of Computer Science & Engineering) for his technical assistance in analyzing eye-tracking data and providing on-site support during simulation sessions; Sven Diaz (University of Nevada, Reno Department of Computer Science & Engineering), Hadi Rumjahn and Tyler Goffinet (University of Nevada, Reno @One Digital Media Technology) for their on-site support during simulation sessions; and Alicia Fong (University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine) for her logistic coordination of simulation sessions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.