Virtual patients on the semantic Web: a proof-of-application study.

Publisher: JMIR Publications Country of Publication: Canada NLM ID: 100959882 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1438-8871 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 14388871 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Med Internet Res Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: <2011- > : Toronto : JMIR Publications
Original Publication: [Pittsburgh, PA? : s.n., 1999-

Computer Simulation* ; Internet* ; Patient Simulation* ; User-Computer Interface*; Education, Medical/*methods; Health Personnel ; Humans ; Pilot Projects ; Semantics ; Software ; Students, Medical

Background: Virtual patients are interactive computer simulations that are increasingly used as learning activities in modern health care education, especially in teaching clinical decision making. A key challenge is how to retrieve and repurpose virtual patients as unique types of educational resources between different platforms because of the lack of standardized content-retrieving and repurposing mechanisms. Semantic Web technologies provide the capability, through structured information, for easy retrieval, reuse, repurposing, and exchange of virtual patients between different systems.
Objective: An attempt to address this challenge has been made through the mEducator Best Practice Network, which provisioned frameworks for the discovery, retrieval, sharing, and reuse of medical educational resources. We have extended the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring and deployment platform to facilitate the repurposing and retrieval of existing virtual patient material.
Methods: A standalone Web distribution and Web interface, which contains an extension for the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring system, was implemented. This extension was designed to semantically annotate virtual patients to facilitate intelligent searches, complex queries, and easy exchange between institutions. The OpenLabyrinth extension enables OpenLabyrinth authors to integrate and share virtual patient case metadata within the mEducator3.0 network. Evaluation included 3 successive steps: (1) expert reviews; (2) evaluation of the ability of health care professionals and medical students to create, share, and exchange virtual patients through specific scenarios in extended OpenLabyrinth (OLabX); and (3) evaluation of the repurposed learning objects that emerged from the procedure.
Results: We evaluated 30 repurposed virtual patient cases. The evaluation, with a total of 98 participants, demonstrated the system's main strength: the core repurposing capacity. The extensive metadata schema presentation facilitated user exploration and filtering of resources. Usability weaknesses were primarily related to standard computer applications' ease of use provisions. Most evaluators provided positive feedback regarding educational experiences on both content and system usability. Evaluation results replicated across several independent evaluation events.
Conclusions: The OpenLabyrinth extension, as part of the semantic mEducator3.0 approach, is a virtual patient sharing approach that builds on a collection of Semantic Web services and federates existing sources of clinical and educational data. It is an effective sharing tool for virtual patients and has been merged into the next version of the app (OpenLabyrinth 3.3). Such tool extensions may enhance the medical education arsenal with capacities of creating simulation/game-based learning episodes, massive open online courses, curricular transformations, and a future robust infrastructure for enabling mobile learning.

Med Teach. 2009 Aug;31(8):752-8. (PMID: 19811214)
Med Teach. 2009 Aug;31(8):764-9. (PMID: 19811216)
Acad Med. 2010 Oct;85(10):1589-602. (PMID: 20703150)
Acad Med. 2011 Feb;86(2):151; author reply 151. (PMID: 21270545)
Med Teach. 2011;33(11):933-7. (PMID: 22022903)
J Med Internet Res. 2011;13(4):e123. (PMID: 22173204)
BMC Med Educ. 2012;12:1. (PMID: 22240206)
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2012;180:954-7. (PMID: 22874334)
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2012;180:958-62. (PMID: 22874335)
J Med Internet Res. 2013;15(11):e240. (PMID: 24168820)
J Med Internet Res. 2014;16(1):e3. (PMID: 24394603)
J Med Internet Res. 2014;16(1):e23. (PMID: 24463466)
J Med Internet Res. 2014;16(6):e151. (PMID: 24927470)
J Med Internet Res. 2014;16(11):e240. (PMID: 25373314)
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2000;70:133-8. (PMID: 10977526)
Emerg Med J. 2005 Aug;22(8):577-81. (PMID: 16046764)
BMC Med Educ. 2006;6:10. (PMID: 16504041)
J Gen Intern Med. 2006 May;21(5):424-9. (PMID: 16704382)
Health Info Libr J. 2007 Mar;24(1):2-23. (PMID: 17331140)
Int J Med Inform. 2007 May-Jun;76(5-6):336-43. (PMID: 17331800)
Acad Med. 2007 May;82(5):446-51. (PMID: 17457063)
Med Teach. 2008;30(2):170-4. (PMID: 18464142)
Med Educ. 2009 Apr;43(4):303-11. (PMID: 19335571)
Med Teach. 2009 Aug;31(8):739-42. (PMID: 19811211)
Med Teach. 2009 Aug;31(8):743-8. (PMID: 19811212)

Keywords: data sharing; educational assessment; medical education; patient simulation; problem-based learning; semantics

Date Created: 20150124 Date Completed: 20150609 Latest Revision: 20191210

20240628

PMC4319094

10.2196/jmir.3933

25616272