Augmented Reality in Paramedic Training: a Formative Study

Emergency management of critically ill patients and a high expectation of mastery of technical medical skills are an essential aspect in a paramedics’ scope of practice. An entry level paramedic with limited exposure to high-risk critical patients is expected to perform interventions and utilize critical thinking skills at a mastery level when entering the workforce as reported by Zautchke et al. (The Journal of Emergency Medicine, 505–512, 1987). Paramedic programs in the USA continue to deliver the bulk of the course curriculum in a traditional classroom lecture format using 2-dimensional methods such as PowerPoint and lecture. Traditional, lecture-driven teaching methods rarely provide opportunities for paramedic students to directly witness the impact of their decisions and develop automaticity of their skills to reduce reaction times and prevent cognitive overload. Automacity is defined as making more automatic decisions and practices in the face of random incidences that occur in authentic conditions and is the result of repeated learning and practice. This definition is a classic example of a problematic circumstance which can utilize design thinking to resolve it. If the definition of design thinking is to use methods and processes for investigating ill-defined problems and finding solutions, then it is important for instructional designers to be innovative to assist them in recognizing these contexts, being creative in the generating appropriate solutions, and rationalizing/analyzing potential “best fit’ solutions. For years, EMT’s and paramedics have utilized mannequins (often called “Resuscitation Annies”) to teach recovery skills. Over the years, these mannequins have been augmented with technology to assist with skill development and to make them more interactive. Yet, as effective as they have been for the state of the art they represented, they have not been multifaceted enough for trainers to create an appropriate level of randomness that represent the ever complex situations paramedics and EMTs are becoming involved with. On top of that, the granularity and authenticity of the visual aspects caused these mannequins to suffer from a lack of a third dimensional realism, especially as it related, for example, to bodily fluids breakage and other sources of complications, for example.