While there are still many nurse practitioners who have learned how to use a needle on an orange, the pool of nurses being trained today will benefit from the latest advances in technology.
Introducing Emory HAL: the world’s first AI-enabled patient simulator designed for training nurses. Developed and manufactured by Gaumard Scientificthe Emory University Neil Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing It is the first company in the world to use the HAL S-5301 Human Patient Simulator.
For now, they’re still trying to figure out exactly what that usage will look like, in terms of how students can get the most out of the new technology’s features.
“We now have this amazing, great offering,” said Beth Ann Swan, associate dean and vice president of Academic Practice Partnerships. “But what is the workload now to get faculty to use it, to maximize it, to improve it? What then is the workload for our students to use?”
Kim Fugate is a simulations specialist at the Emory Center for Nursing Education and is responsible for working with HAL to figure out how it will best benefit students. (Image credit: Jim Burress)
Swan said HAL has the potential to change the game in medical education with its advanced features and ability to simulate a wide range of medical conditions. But is this new technology worth its six-figure price tag?
At a cost of over $160,000, the Emory HAL is a significant investment for any educational institution. And while the benefits of this innovative technology are clear, some may question whether the cost justifies the educational benefits.
According to Jim Archetto, Vice President of Domestic Sales at Gaumard, training with simulators like HAL leads to better results. refers to a Harvard study It shows that practitioners who use medical simulators have lower rates of malpractice.
Archetto says the price isn’t likely to drop anytime soon, given that AI is just one item in a long list of expensive parts. But he says this is an area where the price is justified.
“It’s like training airline pilots on flight simulators… Frankly, the risk is too high from a patient care standpoint to not be training on a simulator,” Arquito said. “As a society, we have made the decision to say ‘this is needed’.”
Some believe that HAL’s AI feature could be revolutionary in medical education, providing students with an experience that is as close to a real-life scenario as possible. The HAL can listen, respond to questions, display symptoms, and even cry or sweat. His animatronics are so advanced that he can move his head and blink his eyes, making him look more like a real patient than a machine.
But with such a high cost, some question whether the educational benefits of HAL are worth the investment. Will students learn more using HAL than they would using less advanced medical simulators? Is the cost of technology too high for most nursing schools?
Despite these concerns, the Emory University School of Nursing is trying to imagine the hospital of the future and prepare the nurses who will work in it.
“I, as someone who’s trained on each other and the oranges, to be here now doing this with all this tremendous equipment, it’s incredible to me how far the field has come in so short a period of time,” Swan said. “And I think with AI, it’s going to explode. It’s going to reframe what’s possible.”
Only time will tell if HAL will revolutionize medical education and justify its high cost. Right now, Emory HAL is clearly a leading development in the field of medical simulation, and is sure to attract the attention of educators, researchers, and medical professionals around the world.