RAPID: A Virtual Reality simulator to train first responders involved in health care efforts related to the COVID-19 virus outbreak

并非所有保健工作者都具备处理传染病的必要背景和培训，不同的传染病需要采取不同类型的预防措施。在这种情况下，培训这些应对人员处理新型病毒COVID-19感染患者变得至关重要。该项目涉及创建一个基于虚拟现实的模拟环境，以支持对美国医院、社区和城市的护士等急救人员的培训，以便更有效地应对最近的COVID-19疫情。COVID-19病毒大流行给国家治疗患者的能力带来了巨大压力；需要接受检测的患者人数继续增加（预计在未来几周和几个月内将大幅增加）。目前，迫切需要培训这些反应者（护士、医师助理和其他人员），以便以有系统、安全和有效的方式进行筛查/检测活动。通过为此类培训创建虚拟现实模拟器，本项目将实现两个目标：(i)增加参与COVID-19测试的第一反应人员数量；（ii）制定更有效的程序来培训和准备这些第一响应者。该模拟器的培训模块还将用于向大学生介绍为医疗和保健环境设计和构建此类虚拟现实模拟器的过程。随着COVID-19患者人数继续迅速增加，国家拥有更多训练有素的急救人员至关重要。创建这样一个虚拟现实训练模拟器将解决这一迫切需要。这个创新的模拟器将为护士和其他保健助理提供一个用户友好和有效的培训经验，以执行各种与分诊有关的筛选和测试活动。包括急救人员、护士和分诊协调员（来自医院合作伙伴）在内的跨学科研究小组将以独特的参与式设计为基础的方法合作设计和建造这个培训模拟器。在COVID-19急救人员和医学专家的参与下，将创建一个以信息为中心的流程模型（ICPM），以捕获基于分诊的患者交互过程（包括筛查、测试和治疗）中涉及的各种活动的功能和时间关系。建立这样一个ICPM将为创建模拟环境提供坚实和结构化的基础，这些模拟环境将分发给全国的医院。（在创建该模拟器之后）将举办在线讲习班，以帮助医院和诊所使用该模拟器。将提出针对医疗保健专业人员的会议和讲习班论文，以突出该培训模拟器的设计和使用。该项目由促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

All health-care workers may not have the necessary background and training to handle contagious diseases, and different contagious diseases need different types of precautions to be taken. In this context, training these responders to handle the novel virus COVID-19 infected patients become paramount. This project involves the creation of a Virtual Reality based simulation environment to support training of first responders including nurses in hospitals, communities, and cities in the US in order to respond more effectively to the recent COVID-19 outbreak. The COVID-19 virus pandemic has placed an overwhelming strain on the Nation's ability to treat patients; the number of patients who need to be tested continues to rise (and is expected to increase substantially in the coming weeks and months). Currently, there is an urgent need to train such responders (nurses, physician assistants and others) to perform the screening/testing activities in a methodical, safe and efficient manner. By creating a Virtual Reality simulator for such training, this project will accomplish two objectives: (i) increase the pool of first responders involved in COVID-19 testing; and (ii) develop a more effective process to train and prepare such first responders. The simulator's training modules will also be used to introduce university students to the process of designing and building such Virtual Reality simulators for medical and healthcare contexts.With the number of COVID-19 patients continuing to increase rapidly, it is critical that the Nation have a larger pool of trained first responders. The creation of such a Virtual Reality training simulator will address this urgent need. This innovative simulator will provide a user-friendly and effective training experience for the nurses and other health care assistants to perform various triage-related screening and testing activities. An interdisciplinary team of researchers including first responders, nurses and triage coordinators (from a hospital partner) will collaborate in a unique participatory design-based approach to designing and building this training simulator. With the involvement of COVID-19 first responders and medical specialists, an information centric process model (ICPM) will be created that captures the functional and temporal relationships of various activities involved in the triage-based patient interaction process including screening, testing, and treatment. The creation of such an ICPM will provide a robust and structured foundation to create the simulation environments, which will be distributed to hospitals nationwide. On-line workshops will be held (after creation of this simulator) to help with the use of this simulator by hospitals and clinics. Conference and workshop papers targeting medical and healthcare professionals will be presented to highlight the design and use of this training simulator.This project is co-funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.