Virtual world finds real-life use in emergency exercises

Imagine someone shows up with a suspicious package on one of your hospital floors. Would your staff members react quickly, calmly, and correctly, according to your hospital’s policy? Traditionally, finding the answer to such a question would include conducting a tabletop exercise or full-fledged disaster drill. However, now you can also try this scenario in an innovative online application. In fact, Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago ran the suspicious-package scenario in a Second Life virtual world set up just like its real-life facility. Second Life is a 3-D Web site that its users help create.