SCSC2003 Abstract S4950
Virtual Reality as a Training Tool in a Hospital Simulation
Virtual Reality as a Training Tool in a Hospital Simulation
Submitting Author: Ms. Ludmila Gabcan
Abstract:
The Operational Research (OR) it is a field where has produced a great amount of new tools to facilitate the way to structure and to think on existent problems in several segments as industry, education, environment, and health. The Hospital - as a supplier of services, there is a long time it is a recognized application field for the OR methods. The first models that appeared in this kind of application were so nice to increase the understanding of system nature than to aid in the decisions taking process effectively.
The method of OR develops studies through formal or abstract models that seek a mathematical or logical description of some main characteristics of the studied real system. Modeling is the art of to build and to use such models as tools for the alternative politics analysis and operations evaluation. Medical cares needs as well the services duration are of nature probabilistic, although they can sometimes be dominated by systematic factors, such as seasonal variation, methods of programming of activities, and demarcation of consultations.
Administrative models are useful to promote the project of new hospitals, changes in sections of units of the hospital already existent, as well as to monitor, to evaluate and to plan programs of health. Simulation is a powerful tool for this study type, because it offers means of to evaluate several points of importance, such as patients' flow, layout of the units and allocation of material and human resources. The Simulation facilitates the study of the interaction and of the impact group of several elements and fundamental processes in the modeling.
The simulation surpasses many of the limitations of resolution of another methods of Operational Research. In spite of the big work involved in a practical application, the precision of its results is generally low. Its main advantages are Simplicity, Flexibility and Reliability.
The visualization is a method of graphic computation that transforms the symbolic in the geometric, facilitating the researchers to observe its simulations. It enables that user to observe data, the simulations and the models in a more elegant and significant way. The actual visualization techniques as Virtual Reality allow a better understanding of the simulation because it provides a very easy user interface. The user can observe and manipulate the data in a more natural way.
This work presents a method enables that a logical model of generated simulation can present the results in a 3D model through VR techniques and it can be used as training tool. The model possesses components for which the user can observe in a simple and operational way its dynamics. The layout in this work was based in the original plan to the Institute of Diseases of Thorax, located in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). This methodology is of easy application to the situations of the daily. Some advantages obtained through the VR built model:
� More easy user interface to OR researcher to observe and manipulate the results;
� Viewpoints can be changed freely;
� Improve the environment realism;
� Better understanding from new facilities and its physic limitations during the simulation and
� The possibility to distributed the VR model over the Internet, promoting the research cooperation.
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