This SBIR Phase I application proposes to create an interactive, multiplayer 3D health and medicine themed IDM-STEM, iOS and Android mobile game product experience that will provide an informal science education for students and teachers in grades 6 through 12, including underserved and minority populations. BioMojo, LLC, and the University of North CarolinaâChapel Hill have teamed to adapt and improve cutting-edge technology and content originally designed to educate and train students within the UNC Healthcare campus across the domains of preventative medicine, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, and global health, while accelerating students abilities to exhibit clinical decision-making and patient interaction skills, demonstrate foundational medical knowledge, and manage real-world patient care. This First-Person Experience (FPE) Virtual Patient Game (VPG) will be driven by patient story lines and scenario narratives. It will focus on patient care delivery and target exploration, knowledge gathering, plus decision-making in 3D medically accurate environments using standard clinical workflows. The gameplay will be engaging, intuitive, scalable, and repeatable. The intuitive game controls will minimize the learning curve and facilitate an enjoyable experience for users from all different skill levels. The core of the game will be based on player performed (virtual) diagnostic procedures and other interactions with photorealistic, data-driven virtual patient human avatars that are physiologically, anatomically, and biomechanically accurate. Players will receive clinical guidance when they request it from virtual mentors at key decision points within each gameplay module, and each player session will be scored for analysis and debrief. During multiplayer, players can communicate using VOIP. The episodic game will include four customizable player classes with unique skills that can leveled up across single and multiplayer gameplay. Players can activate additional class-specific skills by earning and spending skill points. The game will be created with extensive input from subject matter experts and tested by students at various informal education groups within North Carolina.
Public Health Relevance Statement: PROJECT NARRATIVE This SBIR Phase I application proposes to create an interactive, multiplayer 3D health and medicine themed IDM-STEM, iOS and Android game product experience that will provide an informal science education for students and teachers in grades 6 through 12, in addition to universities, adult education, and workplace training, including underserved and minority populations. BioMojo and the University of North CarolinaâChapel Hill have teamed to adapt and improve cutting-edge technology originally designed to educate and train students within the UNC Healthcare campus across the clinical domains of preventative medicine, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, and global health while accelerating students abilities to exhibit appropriate clinical decision-making and patient interaction skills, demonstrate foundational medical knowledge, and manage real-world patient care. This First-Person Experience (FPE) game will inspire and educate youth towards careers in healthcare and clinical research through fun, challenging in-game virtual role play, teamwork, and problem-solving, while performing patient education and behavior modification related to topics such as common injuries, preventable chronic diseases, lifestyle habits, physiology, anatomy, genomics, pathophysiology, pharmacotherapy, and cognition.
Project Terms: Adult; Age; Anatomy; Android; base; Behavior; Behavior Therapy; Biology; Biomechanics; career; Career Choice; Characteristics; Chronic Disease; Clinical; clinical decision-making; Clinical Research; Cognition; Complex; Computer Simulation; Data; Decision Making; Dentistry; design; Development; Diagnostic Procedure; Discipline of Nursing; Disease; Disease Progression; Eating; Education; Environment; Exercise; Exhibits; experience; Family; Foundations; Functional disorder; Future Teacher; Genomics; global health; Habits; Health; Health Care Research; Healthcare; High School Student; Human; improved; informal learning; Information Resources Management; Injury; Intuition; junior high school; Knowledge; Learning; Life Style; Medical; Medicine; Mentors; North Carolina; Patient Care; Patient Education; Patients; Persons; Pharmacotherapy; Pharmacy facility; Pharmacy Schools; Phase; Physiological; Physiology; Pilot Projects; Play; Population; Preventive Medicine; Problem Solving; Recording of previous events; Research; Risk; Role; science education; simulation; skills; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; social; student training; Students; Techniques; Technology; technology development; Testing; therapy adherence; Time; Training; underserved minority; Universities; virtual; Workplace; Yo
