Advanced Human-Computer Interactions with a Patient Simulator: Moving towards a Smart Campus and a Learning Health System

Research suggests that tacit knowledge can include feeling or affect, which may impact human thought, actions, and socio-cultural connections. The concepts of action learning and tacit knowledge development were studied and shown to have potential in knowledge management systems for healthcare. A small pre-test of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) learning at a clinical learning resource center was conducted to investigate if greater confidence and stronger collaboration or community building are possible from human-computer interactions with a human patient simulator (HPS). The recommendation is for more research into providing modern, advanced interfaces to simulate interacting with patients and to improve knowledge management of training and education. In an emergency department, in a patient’s room, or in a public setting, awareness of someone suffering from a pulmonary embolism and providing a fast response could be critical. Using high fidelity HPS robots may help transfer deeper tacit knowledge through experience and provide more effective training than explicit procedural learning and use of simple mannequins. Moreover, using knowledge management to guide the design and application of advanced simulators and instruction may help create “smart campuses” to address health disparities and public health issues and to contribute to the big data analytics of the Learning Health System (LHS).