ACM TechNews

University of Arkansas Researchers Combine Technologies to Heal Patients, Virtually

University of Arkansas (08/05/08)

In an effort to make health care more efficient and cost-effective, University of Arkansas researchers have built a new kind of hospital that uses location aware systems, sensors, smart devices, radio-frequency identification, and virtual reality. Currently the Razorback Hospital can be visited by anyone in the virtual world Second Life. This past spring and summer, students and faculty members worked to create the virtual hospital and supply chain in Second Life, and the group recently offered a public demonstration and discussion. Because Second Life has no limits, the group was able to create things that they believe will exist in the real world in the near future, such as smart pill bottles that only the owner can open and keep track of the pill count, smart shelves that know when they need restocking, a restocking robot, wheelchairs that can follow waypoints to move patients around, and RFID readers and tags. The students also create internal organs for the hospital's avatars, which will allow virtual doctors to perform virtual organ transplant operations. "We feel there is huge potential here--well beyond health care or the groups we have touched so far," says project staff member Adam Barnes. "The project is really about the future world we will all live in--where every object is a network object and humans can communicate with things as well as they do with each other."

http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/13232.htm

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