Virtual Agents Based Simulation for Training Healthcare Workers in Hand Hygiene Procedures

The goal of our work is the design and implementation of a virtual agents based interactive simulation for teaching and training health care workers in the proper procedures for hand hygiene. The health care trainee in the simulation plays the role of a health care inspector in a virtual hospital that resembles a real hospital. The interactive training simulation features a virtual instructor who teaches the trainee the proper procedures of hand hygiene called the Five Moments of hand hygiene, recommended by the Centers of Disease Control and the World Health Organization, with demonstrations and instruction in a tutorial phase. The trainee then interactively practices identifying from observations, if virtual health care worker is following the appropriate procedure of hand hygiene when interacting with a virtual patient and the patient’s environment from ten randomly generated virtual scenarios in a training phase. The trainee gets feedback on his evaluation of whether virtual health care workers in the simulated scenarios are performing their duties in accordance with the Five Moments of hand hygiene in an evaluation phase. We describe the design and development of the virtual hospital environment, simulated virtual instructor, health care worker and patient, and the interactive simulation components towards teaching and training health care best practices.