Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
CLAHRC for North West London, CLAHRC offices, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, 369 Fulham Rd, London, SW10 9NH, UK.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2020 May 19;20(1):442. doi: 10.1186/s12913-020-05290-7.
Healthcare teams often consist of geographically dispersed members. Virtual worlds can support immersive, high-quality, multimedia interaction between remote individuals; this study investigated use of virtual worlds to support remote healthcare quality improvement team meetings.
Twenty individuals (12 female, aged 25-67 [M = 42.3, SD = 11.8]) from 6 healthcare quality improvement teams conducted collaborative tasks in virtual world or face-to-face settings. Quality of collaborative task performances were measured and questionnaires and interviews were used to record participants' experiences of conducting the tasks and using the virtual world software.
Quality of collaborative task outcomes was high in both face-to-face and virtual world settings. Participant interviews elicited advantages for using virtual worlds in healthcare settings, including the ability of the virtual environment to support tools that cannot be represented in equivalent face-to-face meetings, and the potential for virtual world settings to cause improvements in group-dynamics. Reported disadvantages for future virtual world use in healthcare included the difficulty that people with weaker computer skills may experience with using the software. Participants tended to feel absorbed in the collaborative task they conducted within the virtual world, but did not experience the virtual environment as being 'real'.
Virtual worlds can provide an effective platform for collaborative meetings in healthcare quality improvement, but provision of support to those with weaker computer skills should be ensured, as should the technical reliability of the virtual world being used. Future research could investigate use of virtual worlds in other healthcare settings.
医疗团队通常由地理位置分散的成员组成。虚拟世界可以支持远程个人之间身临其境、高质量、多媒体的交互；本研究调查了使用虚拟世界来支持远程医疗质量改进团队会议的情况。
来自 6 个医疗质量改进团队的 20 名成员（12 名女性，年龄 25-67 [M=42.3，SD=11.8]）在虚拟世界或面对面环境中进行协作任务。测量协作任务表现的质量，并使用问卷和访谈记录参与者进行任务和使用虚拟世界软件的体验。
面对面和虚拟世界环境中的协作任务成果质量都很高。参与者的访谈引出了在医疗保健环境中使用虚拟世界的优势，包括虚拟环境支持无法在等效面对面会议中表示的工具的能力，以及虚拟世界环境可能改善群体动态的潜力。未来在医疗保健中使用虚拟世界的报告劣势包括计算机技能较弱的人可能在使用软件方面遇到困难。参与者往往专注于他们在虚拟世界中进行的协作任务，但不会体验到虚拟环境的“真实感”。
虚拟世界可以为医疗质量改进中的协作会议提供有效的平台，但应确保为计算机技能较弱的人提供支持，并确保所使用的虚拟世界的技术可靠性。未来的研究可以调查虚拟世界在其他医疗保健环境中的使用情况。
