Who would have thought that Second Life online virtual world “offers unique design features for disseminating health information, training health professionals, and enabling patient education for both academic and commercial health behavior research…”? It turns out that the game’s interactive, open platform, and the dedicated, albeit small, group of hardcore medical virtualists developed a framework where avatars can be used for training, communication, and even experimentation – after all they are controlled by living humans.
From the University of Toronto press release explaining the research:
The group found that health-related activities in the virtual world have significant implications in the real world. Dante Morra, Medical Director of the CICC (University of Toronto Health Network’s Centre for Innovation in Complex Care), says "virtual worlds and the social networks that populate the Internet offer a new domain for healthcare. Although it is early in the development, there is a great opportunity to use these platforms for education, research and even disease surveillance." Jennifer Keelan, the Principal Investigator on the project, suggests that a major feature for users is the "relative anonymity where patients can seek out information and share health experiences in a safe environment. There is also a great potential for patients to "practice being patients" by virtually experiencing a mammogram or navigating a hospital’s virtual ward—they can gain insight into medical procedures and processes to become more informed." "There is a great opportunity here to understand the design features of social media that make it so appealing and accessible to people," states Leslie Beard, the designer on the team. "Once we understand what pulls people to Web 2.0, we can design and apply more effective communication strategies both within and beyond the Internet."
Full article in Journal of Medical Internet Research: A Survey of Health-Related Activities on Second Life
University of Toronto: More to Second Life than just sex…
Flashbacks: Medgadget Second Life archives…