Technology in emergency and disaster medicine. Telemedicine. Virtual reality. The role of simulation in the improvement of human factors associated to the risk of medical errors

Abstract

Both emergency medicine and disaster medicine have long been connected by technology. To take advantage of the benefits, technology should be considered as part of an integrated team to deliver clinical care to patients. Moreover, technology enabled learning systems, such as virtual reality, simulations or educational games, are commonly used not only as medical training tools but also to improve the human factors associated to the risk of medical errors. Disaster management makes use of multiple technologies to provide services in the disaster zones. The idea of using telemedicine in emergency and disaster situations has been around for more than four decades. Virtual reality represents an efficient alternative technique for training programs in disaster management for every learning stages. Simulation-based Crew Resource Management (CRM) training was found to be effective in the improvement of the non-technical skills and clinical performance of the interprofessional emergency teams.

Keywords

• technology
• telemedicine
• simulation
• virtual reality
• crew resource management