Virtual patient

Virtual patients are simulations or representations of individuals involved in one or more health care processes, typically (but not necessarily) patients. Virtual patients are used in medical training and research.

Forms of Virtual Patients
Virtual patients may take a number of different forms:
 * Artificial patients: computer simulations of biochemical processes such as the effect of drugs in organisms. These are typically used in pharmacological research as an alternative to testing on animals and humans for some of the drug development process.
 * Real patients: reflected in data e.g. electronic health records (EHRs). In this case the virtual patient is the reflection of the real patient in terms of data held about them. These are sometimes called e-patients.
 * Physical simulators: mannequins (sometimes spelled 'manikins'), models or related artefacts.
 * Simulated patients: where the patient is recreated by humans or computer-generated characters acting as such or engaging in other kinds of role-play.
 * Electronic case-studies and scenarios where users work through problems, situations or similar narrative-based activities.

Types of Interaction with Virtual Patients
A number of different modes of virtual patient delivery have been defined:
 * Predetermined scenario [directed mode]
 * The learner may build up the patient or case data from observations and interactions [blank mode]
 * The learner may view and appraise or review an existing patient or scenario [critique mode or rehearsal mode]
 * The VP may be used as a mechanism to address particular topics [context mode]
 * The learner may use a scenario or patient to explore personal/professional dimensions [reflective mode]
 * Banks of patients or scenarios may collectively address broad issues of healthcare [pattern mode]

Possible Benefits of Virtual Patients
Virtual patients increase the availability of training opportunities for medical students, making them less dependent on actual cases to learn how to handle different situations. Unlike real patients, virtual patients can be accessed on demand and they can be endlessly replayable to allow the user to explore different options and strategies. They can be structured with narratives that represent real situations while challenging the user with a wide range of tasks.

Despite their efficacy virtual patients are still a tangent and a prosthesis to reality. They should be viewed as augmenting existing modes and methods of clinical teaching.

Virtual Patient Data Standards
The MedBiquitous consortium established a working group in 2005 to create a free and open data standard for expressing and exchanging virtual patients between different authoring and delivery systems. This was in part to address the problem of exchanging and reusing virtual patients and in part to encourage and support easier and wider use of virtual patients in general.

Examples
Electronic Cases
 * WebSP from Karolinska Institutet
 * Virtual Patients from Harvard Medical School
 * Virtual Patient Project from New York University
 * Labyrinth from the University of Edinburgh
 * TUSK Case Simulator from Tufts University

Simulators
 * Limbs and Things simulators
 * Entelos predictive biosimulators
 * SimMan simulator
 * Harvey simulator,