Recent News
November 24, 2008
SimQuest Awarded Phase 2 Contract from Office of the Secretary of Defense to Develop Pandemic Influenza Training Program
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October 8, 2008
SimQuest Awarded Funding from NIH, NSF and NIST for Open Surgical
Training Simulator
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SimQuest Awarded Phase 2 Contract from Office of the Secretary of Defense to Develop Pandemic Influenza Training Program
Company Seeks to Fill Training Deficit in Infectious Disease Outbreaks
SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND, November 24, 2008—SimQuest, a leading developer of technology-assisted education and training, has received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract award from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to develop a simulation-based planning and training tool for infectious disease outbreak—specifically pandemic influenza.
The end result will be a “serious game”—a software application developed with game design principles and technology that’s used for educational purposes—which allows medical treatment facility (MTF) administrators and supervisors to understand the relationships that strategic planning and tactical decision-making have on the spread of disease.
In addition, the pandemic influenza training program SimQuest is developing is relevant to military training because domestic military support will likely be requested during a pandemic. Force preparedness is also a concern when considering more soldiers were killed by the flu outbreak in 1918 than in World War I in total.
“The problem is that the world is due for an influenza pandemic, with the last one occurring in 1968, and there is a severe shortage of caregivers experienced in pandemic flu response,” says Bob Waddington, COO of SimQuest. “Unfortunately, an experienced caregiver from the last outbreak would likely be over 60-years-old or retired. Our goal is to create an engaging training application for medical treatment facility administrators and supervisors, as well as the military, which can increase readiness and minimize the potential for chaos during the next pandemic outbreak of influenza.”
How SimQuest’s Pandemic Influenza Training Program will Work
The computer-based program SimQuest is developing will incorporate scientific models to present users with various scenarios incorporating the early warning signs of an outbreak through a multi-media dashboard of information. The program will then track and evaluate their strategic planning and decision-making when presented with simulated events. The goal is to allow health care professionals to practice response tactics, recognize the early signs of an outbreak and to help stem the spread of disease through local mitigation strategies.
As part of the program, there will be an added level of complexity in that MTF administrators will not only need to increase hospital capacity to deal with the surge of patients and drain on resources, but they also need to maintain normal functions of the hospital, such as treatment of heart attack patients, trauma victims and many others.
The SimQuest program will be positioned to supplement existing training conducted through table top and large scale exercises before these exercises to better prepare participants for a pandemic influenza outbreak and after to evaluate progress and offer more practice.
About SimQuest, LLC
SimQuest is a technology-assisted education and training company that creates tools for healthcare professionals to develop and perfect their skills without risk to patients and to train their decision-making capabilities for patient care. For more information, please visit SimQuest at www.simquest.com.
Contract Information
This work is supported by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command under Contract No. W81XWH-07-C-0071. The views, opinions and/or findings contained in this report are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation.
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Press Contact:
Monica Giffhorn
mgiffhorn@kineticsmarcom.com
Kinetics Marketing & Communications
301-514-2586
Corporate Contact:
Bob Waddington
bwaddington@simquest.com
SimQuest, LLC
301-587-9440
SimQuest Awarded Funding from NIH, NSF and NIST for Open Surgical
Training Simulator
SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND, October 8, 2008—SimQuest, a leading developer of technology-assisted education and training, has received grants to develop components of a surgical simulator for training in open access procedures awarded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The outcome of each grant will be independent yet will provide complementary advances in instruction and assessment in open access surgery. These advances in simulating open procedures require more complex technology than many of the medical simulators used today by medical schools and hospitals that focus primarily on minimally invasive procedures.
When integrated as a whole, the simulator SimQuest is developing will incorporate medical content, physics-based surgical environment simulation software, force-feedback robotics and a stereoscopic screen to create an accurate, experiential learning environment that will replicate the look and feel of operating on an actual patient. This surgical simulator will meet the needs of healthcare professionals who must currently develop and sustain their surgical skills using patients, cadavers, animals or rudimentary physical surrogate training methods.
SimQuest’s surgical simulator builds upon a framework the company began to develop for work supported by the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.
“Our engineering approach is to break up the simulator into a series of real world physical modeling challenges that need to be addressed, such as wound closure, tissue behavior and interaction with and between surgical tools,” said Dwight Meglan, PhD, SimQuest CTO. “By developing and integrating a hierarchy of simulator capabilities based on guidelines from the American Board of Surgery, the American College of Surgeons and the Association of Program Directors in Surgery, we will create a comprehensive surgical skills training solution.”
“The development of surgical training simulators serves a critical need in reducing medical errors in this country. The simulator being developed by SimQuest will uniquely integrate intelligent modeling and engineering design, and provide important quantitative measures of surgical proficiency,” said Grace C.Y. Peng, PhD, program director at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, NIH.
Founded in 2001 by surgeon and surgical educator Howard Champion, MD, SimQuest leverages existing technologies and integrates new technology developed with the support of NIH, NSF, NIST, the U.S. Army and other strategic partners to bring to market advanced simulators and programs for training, assessing and potentially certifying healthcare professionals.
About SimQuest, LLC
SimQuest is a technology-assisted education and training company that creates tools for healthcare professionals to develop and perfect their skills without risk to patients and to train their decision-making capabilities for patient care. The company’s goal is to provide advanced medical simulators and training programs that embody the state-of-the-art in simulation and adult learning techniques. To this end, SimQuest’s medical professionals and simulation experts—who have pioneered many of the top-selling simulators worldwide—are developing new technology, integrating existing programs and teaming with strategic partners to revolutionize how healthcare is taught. For more information, please visit SimQuest at www.simquest.com.
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Press Contact:
Monica Giffhorn
Kinetics Marketing & Communications
301-514-2586
Corporate Contact:
Bob Waddington
SimQuest, LLC
301-587-9440