BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Husson University is welcoming new technology to enhance health students’ learning.
Meet Hal Husson: the new AI mannequin, located in the university’s Simulated Education Center.
Using artificial intelligence, Hal simulates a real patient by moving, speaking, sweating, and even crying.
“He gives them the capability of practicing their skills in a very realistic, immersive simulation where they can get more professional and can enhance more and more of their skills,” explains Simulated Education Center Director Ghada Konsowa.
James Nash, the Dean of College of Health & Pharmacy, says students’ interactions with Hal are so realistic that: “The next level would be a real patient.”
There are already 15 scenarios loaded into Hal that can simulate a stroke, hypertension, or muscle problems. The school says Hal will work with occupational and physical therapy, pharmacy, and nursing students to bring their lessons to life.
Husson unveiled Hal on Feb. 13th, marking his arrival as “the new era in healthcare simulation,” per Konsowa.
“If we think deeply, Hal aligns very much with Husson’s initiatives, where they want to ensure patient safety and quality care for all the patients,” says Konsowa.
Thomas Johns is a junior Nursing student at Husson, who first met Hal at the unveiling.
Compared to the lower fidelity simulation mannequins that he and other health students have worked with before, Johns says Hal brings a much more humanized learning experience: “The fact that he can cry is helpful to be able to see that because you’re able to respond and ask therapeutic questions and he can respond back in the way that he wants to, versus being fed through, like somebody else saying it and they’re saying that he’s crying versus being able to see it. It incites a different reaction within you when you’re seeing that and that makes you respond a different way.”
They say the more people work with Hal, the smarter he will become.
Nash says that even health professionals in the community can schedule a time in their Simulated Education Center to work with Hal.
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