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Patient safety focus of immersive virtual environment for training pharmacists



Editor's note: Videos about the immersive virtual environment are available online at YouTube.

Cost and limited availability of pharmacy clean rooms—sterile environments where pharmacists prepare materials that need to be guaranteed contamination-free—make it difficult for students to gain experience in such a facility.

A Purdue project makes it easier for students to train in proper clean-room procedures using a flight simulator-like virtual version. The 3-D immersive environment—think the holodeck from the Starship Enterprise—was created from hundreds of digital photos of actual hospital clean rooms and even includes ambient sound recorded in those facilities.

“It gave us a first-hand feel of what we can expect,” said Tara Holt, a third-year Purdue pharmacy student from Frankton, Ind. “The detail that was put into this project really helped make it as close to reality as possible.”

Generally found in hospitals and home health care companies, pharmacy clean rooms are used to prepare drugs, intravenous drips, syringes, chemotherapy treatments and the like, especially those administered directly into the bloodstream—a factor that makes vital the use of a clean room and proper clean-room procedures. Concern over the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens has only increased the need for such expertise.

The number of clean rooms where pharmacy students can train is limited, however. When the training involves real materials, it also can be expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. Steve Abel, assistant dean for clinical programs in the Purdue School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said Purdue pharmacy students tend to get brief training at the end of their third year, just before they serve a practicum that could land them in a clean room.

The situation got Abel thinking when he toured ITaP's visualization center. ITaP is the university’s central information technology organization, and its visualization center uses cutting-edge techniques, virtual environments among them, to explore new methods for research and education.

Astronauts and pilots train in flight simulators, Abel reasoned, so why not pharmacy students? He collaborated with Steve Dunlop of the visualization center, who enlisted Purdue Computer Graphics Technology Department students Chris Mankey of Fishers, Ind., Chris Sprunger of Lafayette, Ind., and Evan Underwood of Kokomo, Ind.

“To our knowledge, this is the only virtual clean room,” Dunlop said. Lindsey Corbets said the virtual clean room let her practice what she’s been taught and explore how a clean room is set up. But she sees possibilities beyond that.

“I think virtual reality technology is going to become a very big part of teaching,” said Corbets, a student from Rochester Hills, Mich. “It can be used in many different types of classes, from simulating clean rooms all the way to showing what the inside of a body could look like.”

The ITaP visualization center is exploring several other immersive virtual training projects for health care and for geriatric care purposes, as well as for first responders and emergency personnel and construction managers.

A Purdue Provost’s instructional grant, along with funding from Purdue’s Pharmacy School, paid development costs for the virtual clean room.

The simulator runs in a multiwall immersive environment will work on wall-sized panels and portable display systems, too. The equipment employs 3-D glasses and a wireless controller something like a Nintendo Wii’s to put users in the middle of the virtual world being projected and allow them to navigate and manipulate it. Head-tracking capability adjusts the view as a user looks around, or “walks” through, the environment, which is detailed down to the labels on the medicine bottles. The software also has been modified to run on desktop and laptop computers.

The virtual clean room was created from hundreds of digital pictures taken at Clarian Health Partners and Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis, in facilities compliant with USP 797, the federal regulation governing pharmacy clean rooms. The computer-graphics technology students also captured ambient sound and included it in the simulator.

The result stunned Jill Tyner when students began working in the virtual environment during the first semester of 2009. Her reaction wasn’t atypical.

“The technology that made this possible is unbelievable,” said Tyner, a Purdue pharmacy student from Kansas City, Mo. “After this experience, I would feel comfortable stepping into a clean room and explaining the different areas.”

The virtual clean room isn’t perfect—and that’s by design. Abel asked Carrie Jacobs, a sixth-year pharmacy doctoral student from Kalamazoo, Mich., Sheetal Patel, a Purdue pharmacy fellow from Philadelphia, and Ashley Vincent, a pharmacy resident from Indianapolis, to test the simulator before bringing in students and to prepare a lab curriculum for use with the facility. Version one, they decided, was a bit too clean.

The visualization team added a pop can to a refrigerator for medicines, some empty cardboard boxes along a wall, improperly stored syringes, misplaced medicine bottles and other clean room no-nos. Abel said the idea is to help teach proper clean-room procedures by having students identify improper items included in the virtual environment. “It helped us learn the regulations and what not to do in a clean room,” said Caryn Davis, a pharmacy student from Valparaiso, Ind.

Photo caption:
Immersive clean room. Steve Abel, assistant dean for clinical programs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Purdue University, works with pharmacy students in an immersive 3-D virtual version of a pharmacy clean room. The students will soon begin their practicum year and work in real clean rooms, a transition the clean room “simulator” is designed to make easier, and safer for patients.

More photos of the virtual clean room

Videos available online at YouTube:
- Answering the question: Why a virtual pharmacy clean room? Steve Abel, assistant dean for clinical programs, School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Purdue University
- Bringing the virtual pharmacy clean room to life, Steve Dunlop, managing director of Purdue University's Envision Center for Data Perceptualization
- Pharmacy clean room and workroom environment: A virtual walk-through of a sterile environment within a hospital for the preparation of medications
- Working in the virtual clean room, Steve Abel, assistant dean for clinical programs, School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Purdue University
- Building the virtual clean room, Christopher Sprunger, a Purdue University student and graphic artist for the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization, Purdue University
- Improving patient safety is the goal, Sheetal Patel, a Purdue University Pharmacy fellow
- Moving classroom learning out of the classroom, Carrie Jacobs, a Purdue University pharmacy doctoral student
- Dressing for success, Molly Mason, a Purdue University pharmacy student
- Putting the reality in virtual reality, Ashley Vincent, a Purdue University pharmacy resident
- Preparing for the real thing, Sam Durham, a Purdue University pharmacy student
- Working at the live stations, Purdue University pharmacy students

Fly-through animation of the clean room

Writer: Greg Kline, (765) 494-8167, kline@purdue.edu

Sources: Steve Abel, (317) 613-2315, sabel@iupui.edu
Steve Dunlop, (765) 494-5861, dunlops@purdue.edu

More information:
Envision Center for Data Perceptualization Web pages

Last updated: June 22, 2009