VICTEAMS: a virtual environment to train medical team leaders to interact with virtual subordinates

Abstract

International audienceHealth care delivery in military conflict, in peacekeeping missionsor in the aftermath of disaster, implies high stress environmentswith danger exposures, life-threatening events and high levels ofwork demand. Crisis and emergency risk communication remainsa real challenge. The rapid response of emergency medical teamshas an important role to play in preventing serious adverse events.During critical events, medical errors can be related to human or systemfactors, including ineffective team leadership, non-standardizedteam communication, a lack of global situation awareness, pooruse of resources and inappropriate triage and prioritization. TheVICTEAMS project aims at building a virtual environment for trainingrescue team leaders to non-technical skills. Depending on theleader abilities, the virtual characters playing the subordinates (e.g.nurses) reproduce a variety of behaviors like erroneous actions,followership attitudes or stress-based behaviors. A pedagogical directortailors the difficulty according to the dynamic profile of thelearner