FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Terri Bernhardt (407) 883-5181
ECS Debuts Virtual Medic, Serious Game for Medical Training, at Worldwide Simulation Conference
November 30, 2011. Orlando, Fla. Engineering & Computer Simulations (ECS) announced today that they will be debuting an update to their serious game for medical training. The Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TC3) simulation was developed as a result of the partnership forged between Army Research Lab (ARL) Simulation Training Technology Center (STTC) and the U.S. Army Medical Department Center & School, the Department of Combat Medic Training (DCMT) at Fort Sam Houston, TX, to develop and implement new technologies to support simulation-based training environments for Army combat medics.
The United States Marine Corps leveraged the TC3 Sim game development to create the Computer Based Corpsmen Training System (CBCTS) and in the process, upgraded many of the TC3 features and capabilities. Additional research was required, however, to incorporate the CBCTS capabilities into the TC3 Sim baseline as well as migrate to an Open Source game engine, Ogre3D.
The Virtual Medic (vMedic) is an immersive, first person medical training system that presents students with an interactive 3D Serious Game for learning and practicing battlefield medicine. This system builds upon the US Army’s TC3 Sim and the US Marine Corps’ CBCTS. With vMedic, ECS aimed to improve and enhance the effectiveness of learning content delivered by state of the art instructional technologies to include porting the existing architecture to Ogre3D. The vMedic system also assists in developing new tactical environments with enhanced realism, expands from single player mode to multi-player mode allowing for collaborative training between a Combat Lifesaver and Medic, and integrates with ECS’ Learning Management System, SIMILE, for enhanced assessment capabilities and integration with other performance assessment systems such as MeTER.
vMedic represents the next generation serious game for medical training because it paves the way for collective medical training. “Much like tactical training, medical training focuses on a team. This game provides an opportunity for Combat Lifesavers and Medics to train together to save fallen warriors’ lives as they will do in theater,” stated Joe O’Connell, Vice President, Business Development, ECS. “Whether in the classroom or prior to deployment, trainees can practice critical thinking skills in collaboration with their counterparts, thus better preparing them for battlefield medicine.”
vMedic provides mission-driven scenarios that include synthetic casualties generated from realistic visual, behavioral, and physiological models. Combat Lifesavers and Medics are presented with one or multiple casualties that they must keep alive and evacuate by selecting the appropriate interventions during combat. The trainee takes on the first person view of a Combat Lifesaver or Medic attached to a unit in Afghanistan. During the mission, squad members and civilians are wounded and the injured have to be triaged, treated, and safely evacuated.
After each scenario, learners are presented with an After Action Review that analyzes and evaluates their decision-making skills. The AAR evaluates every critical measure of treatment on a casualty and provides an explanation of a learner’s performance and why it was, or was not successful. This assessment is encoded into rules that are active, based upon the casualties, or combination of casualties in any given scenario. A mission editor is also included that allows users to create and modify the environments, casualties, and scenarios a learner will encounter. New objects and environments can also be imported into the editor from a number of commercially available tools
About ECS
Engineering & Computer Simulations, Inc. is a software development and solutions company located in Orlando, Florida. The core mission of the organization is to provide advanced learning technology solutions to clients within the Commercial and Government sector. The company’s technology portfolio of immersive virtual worlds, serious gaming, performance assessment, staff training, and mobile innovations offers efficiencies in education, training and collaboration.
