Emergency-preparedness planning has taken a quantum leap from having professionals play with toy trucks and buildings, and plastic people on a table top.    The Idaho State University Institute of Rural Health has created a virtual environment to train emergency-preparedness professionals. This is the only type of training like this anywhere. Please visit the Web site www.play2train.org to get a taste of this phenomenon I'm describing. It is set in the "Second Life" (www.secondlife.com) virtual world that has nearly six million subscribers and can be used by any one in the world who has a reasonably new personal computer. Contacts are Neill Piland (208-282-5021 or pilaneil@isu.edu), research professor, and Ramesh Ramloll, research assistant professor in the ISU Kasiska College of Health Professions Institute of Rural Health (he can be contacted at ramlrame@isu.edu or 208-282-5333)

   ISU's "play2train" virtual world is an example of "serious play," where programmers use gaming technology -- similar to that used in SimCity games, HALO and WarCraft --- and apply it to serious applications. Participants create an avatar for themselves to enter into the virtual realm, where they can interact with other participants in "live" or "real time" exercises. One benefit of this method is that people from all over the world can log in and participate in a training exercise. An esoteric aspect of this new application is that advertisers and vendors are using "Second Life" to display and demonstrate their products. A growing list of major businesses, including IBM Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., and the National Basketball Association, have set up virtual offices in Second Life. There they can show off images of their new products or hold virtual staff meetings and news conferences with Second Life users anywhere in the world.

   Applications are varied and complex, and can be built on continually. Users can take their avatar to an online conference and watch live-streaming video on a screen at the virtual conference and then ask live questions to the presenter ... or see how they would react to having triage units setup outside of a hospital building during a crisis.

   If you're interested in a demonstration of or a tour of this this technology in Boise, please contact Annette Phillipp at 208-373-1772 or philanne@isu.edu in the ISU Institute of Rural Health's Treasure Valley office. Our Boise office media contact is Chris Gabettas at 373-1806.

The IRH has held online outreach conferences (see the IRH Web site) via the new technology and has a large conference scheduled in October. <>

There will be other events in between that are in the planning stages. The IRH is in the process of developing the virtual training environment, and the environment is being beta-tested by leading members of various target audiences, e.g. law enforcement, emergency medical technicians and health care providers.

This project is supported by Grant #T01HP06420 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. The contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the DHHS.

Here is a link to a local television station's story on Play2Train: http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?s=6572136

   We would like to give credit to the ASPR for this article.

This project is supported by Grant #T01HP06420 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

The contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the DHHS.