Potential of Virtual Worlds for Nursing Care: Lessons and Outcomes
Nitin Walia, Fatemeh Mariam Zahedi, Hemant K Jain · OJIN The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing · 2017
Second Life® (SL) as the exemplar of virtual worlds has become a new platform for simulating real-life experiences and interactions. Educational institutions, hospitals, government and business organizations, and individuals participate in SL. Virtual worlds provide new opportunities for online interactions in 3D platforms for many social and business activities, including some healthcare initiatives. Increasing participation by patients and providers, and an expanding range of activities, have made SL an exciting environment for creativity and innovation. This paper explores the unique aspects of the SL based platform as it might enhance nursing services by functioning as a viable supplement to traditional nursing care delivery systems to further enhance positive patient outcomes. This paper explores the unique aspects of SL based platform to enhance nursing services and to function as a viable supplement to traditional nursing delivery systems. This work is in direction of realizing integration of healthcare and web technologies that promotes use of web tools by actors in healthcare, including nurses, physicians, and patients. Contributions to field of nursing have been discussed.