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Case Study: Children’s Memorial Hospital Chicago Uses Second Life to Conduct Emergency Training

Emergency evacuation training is an important business. We live in a dangerous and threatening world and it’s imperative that enterprises, government entities, educational institutions, and healthcare organizations are ready for anything to protect their employees, students, and the public. However, emergency training can take people away from their everyday duties and disrupt the normal course of business. Healthcare organizations are particularly important when an emergency occurs. They not only need to take care of their current patients, but prepare for a flood of new patients. They are our first responders and need to be ready for anything—from a terrorist attack to an H1N1 pandemic.

Training doctors, nurses, staff, administrators, and patient families at a hospital is a daunting task requiring real life context. That’s where Second Life comes in. A year ago, Children’s Memorial Hospital Chicago approached Centrax, a Chicago e-learning company and Second Life Solution Provider, to create a mirror image, or an exact replica, of their hospital so that they could train everyone through a variety of scenarios—all safely behind a computer. Within four hours, they had run a team—most had never been in Second Life—through the entire training exercise successfully. The details are in the case study published today entitled, “Preparing for a Disaster Without Disrupting Patient Care: The Children’s Memorial Hospital Chicago in Second Life.”

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