Patient simulator as virtual tutor, seeks to grow with nursing, medical school students’ training (video)

Nurses have been taking on more responsibility in recent years — and a good thing too. If the shortage of primary care physicians continues coupled with millions of new patients expected to be added to healthcare systems when provisions of the Affordable Care Act are enacted, they will have to take on even more. At the same time, some nursing schools are struggling to employ enough professors. A health IT startup has developed a cloud-based patient simulator that is being designed to be progressively more challenging as nursing school students’ skills develop.

Gainesville, Florida-based Shadow Health’s education tool seeks to put nursing and medical school students at ease with the routine of seeing patients and boost their comfort levels so they know what to expect. It also is aimed at making future nurses and physicians become more self-aware and better communicators so they develop a stronger rapport with their patients.

Tina Jones, an animated and interactive patient, comes into an exam …