The Orlando Sentinel reports on the development of Burn Center by 360Ed, a local startup. The training game is designed to teach medical professionals who are not burn experts to deal with mass casualties from an event such as an explosion
The Sentinel notes that 360Ed partnered with the University of Florida College of Medicine and the Florida Department of Health on the project. 360Ed CEO Ben Noel, formerly of Electronic Arts:
September 11 awakened us to the fact that we have to prepare for these mass-casualty type of events, and the best way to prepare is modern technology, simulation and games. Instead of simulating it in a field experience, which can be very expensive, we are simulating it on a computer, which can be played over and over...
They said, 'If we give you a playbook, can you make like a Madden football for mass-casualty emergency response?' I said, 'Yeah, we aren't creating any new technology here; we'd just be taking content to places it hasn't been before.'
As the game begins, players are told that bombs have just exploded at a theme park:
The first phase is a race against time in which the player has to quickly assess and triage 40 victims. The second phase takes place in the intensive-care unit, where players make treatment decisions during a simulated 36-hour period. To get training certification from the American Burn Association, players must reach a certain score.
Burn Center isn't for the faint of heart. The game features screaming people, many of whom have gruesome burns and are covered in blood. In fact, some of the 360Ed team had a hard time looking at the real photos provided by UF to ensure the graphics in the game were realistic.
Comments
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
I looked to see if there was a way to get a copy of this (short of finding an e-mail address to ask.. their site is a little.. bare) with no luck. I want to see what they did for their work. Not from a poke and scream kind of thing but from a "Wow this is what they really do? I'm learning.." type thing. I hear about these cool simulations but there is never any information for someone like me to have access to them. Bleh.
---- There is a limit for both politicians against video games, and video games against politicians. http://www.goteamretard.com
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
I agree. Video-games can never be used as pure training. As a suplement? It would work beautifully. It could assist alongside from future doctor's training, to be better deal with the potential of these horrible kinds of things.
Help yes, replacement of regular training...I hope not.
"Nurse, the X-button is suppose to start the triage right?"
"...Doctor...don't tell me, you've never..."
"Where is that controller! R2 for scalpel!"
==============
James Fletcher, member of ECA Canada
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
While I feel it wouldn't be as effective as actual training, it should help. I probably would have read too much into this before the study linking video games to better surgeons, but now I think the idea has realistic potential.
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
I kinda want to play it...
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
Poke the patient and make 'em scream!
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
What rating do you think this game will gt if rated by the ESRB? I would imagine it would be "M" because it apparently is pretty graphic. As a guy that has Triage training, I rather want to see how this game actually works so I hope it will be readily available. (But I would'nt hold my breath)
But if it was....would the soccer moms of the world demand that the game be censored or banned because it is "too graphic and violent?"
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
It doesn't say what platform its for, though I assume since the company is named 360Ed that it will be for the 360... unless Microsoft violates its own policies, the game will be required to be rated by the ESRB. Content not run by those nazis isn't allowed.
I imagine since it is a "serious game" and will likely have limited distribution (heaven forbid people learn to handle emergencies by themselves) the ESRB might give them a break and let them have an M so that it will be allowed on the console. Normally any game with even a bare whiff of realism gets rated AO and banned. Yes, BANNED. Microsoft, like Sony and Nintendo, have both sworn that their consoles will never boot an AO rated game. And making a game that could boot without them approving it would violate the DMCA and land you in prison, so it is an airtight ban.
Soccer moms don't matter any more. Gamers were dumb enough to allow the ESRB to take over the world of videogames out of a petty fear that government would start regulating videogames (which it obviously would NEVER be allowed to do) so now they have all the power. They're psychotically ultraconservative and they will only get more so. They will continue to make their standards stricter and more secret as time goes by in order to justify their own existence. If you dream of a future where videogames make important artistic statements, or sweep you away with powerful, disturbing, or uplifting imagery informing you of the human condition and the things that every other form of art can do... forget it. Gamers fucked themselves entirely. The ESRB will never allow it. In the mind of the ESRB, people aren't full of blood, they don't have bones that can snap, they never fight, they don't have nipples, penises, vaginas, or a sexual nature that starts in utero and ends only with death. Any game that conflicts with that view will be rated harshly, and any that tries to make people give thought about these subjects will be banned by them.
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
At the same time, I'm always interested in seeing how newer, powerful simulation techniques can greatly benefit in training and education for everyone from emergency responders to elementary school students. It's still largely a positive development to have these tools...even seven years later, heh.
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
Not to disparage anyone because I do think that stuff like this is very imprtant, but using the phrase "September 11 awakened us to..." is sort of silly now. I mean, if it really was 9/11 that begat this idea then these guys dropped the ball somewhere in the past 7 years.
Unless Burn Center is the Duke Nuke'em 4 Ever of the serious games movement, of course.
Re: Burn Center Game Trains Docs for Mass Casualty Events
You do realize that not everything can find funding quickly, even in the wake of a national disaster right? Especially considering the company was only founded in 2006.