i-Human Patients, is a high performance, cloud-based multimedia case authoring and playback system now owned and operated by Kaplan. Based out of Santa Clara, California, the medical simulation tool works through an internet browser (without apps or downloads) to improve learners’ diagnostic reasoning skills and patient outcomes. Through use of this system, healthcare simulation learners can fill in the cognitive development void typically left unfilled by expensive mannequin simulators or live patient actors.
Founded in 2000 as Summit Performance Group, LLC, and privately held as i-Human Patients, Inc. (IHP), the company has worked to become a leader in interactive e-learning solutions for both healthcare learners and clinicians. In February of 2018, Kaplan acquired i-Human Patients expanding Kaplan’s current offerings in preparation for professional licensure exams, specifically for its healthcare portfolio, which serves doctors, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics.
IHP’s mission is to promote the delivery of high quality, cost-effective care, and to simultaneously ensure an adequate supply of qualified providers around the world — especially through simulation in healthcare programs via virtual patients.
Clinical Experiences in i-Human Patients
Each simulated experience serves as a comprehensive learning tool to integrate clinical experience much earlier into medical education. With i-Human Patients, clinical patient encounters are safe, repeatable and fully-graded.
This integration helps learners develop their ability to assess a patient, while additionally preparing them for a possible apprenticeship where they would train with real patients. Through working with i-Human Patients, learners are able to receive in-depth online guidance, feedback and coaching at every step of their individual learning process.
The IHP software platform company simulates a complete medical patient encounter with animated avatars, human physiology and pathophysiology, virtual histopathology and 3D anatomy. Through virtual patient encounters, learners master lab skills and cognitive-based concepts. This is so that when they go to take high stakes tests, they are then better prepared to succeed.
Cases allow integration of exercises related to the clinical and/or basic sciences associated with the clinical case, including virtual histopathology, 3D anatomy and assessment rubrics (such as MCQ, T/F, free-form text, matching questions, etc.). Ultimately, the system provides individualized and objective evidence-based feedback as well as detailed group/cohort reporting.
For example, the i-Human Patients Case Player is the next-generation, cloud-based virtual patient simulator and case authoring system. The Case Player simulates a complete medical patient encounter from taking a history, performing physical exams, building and ranking a differential, to ordering and evaluating tests.
i-Human Patient Cases: Virtual Patients for Clinical Learning
The i-Human Patients software enables learners to experience a variety of cases. In terms of medical cases, learners are given access to hundreds of scenarios to home their review, examination, diagnosis and documentation skills.
For those aspiring to become a Physician Assistant, they can use i-Human Patients to practice clinical judgment skills in a safe environment with repeatable encounters. Configured specifically for graduate nursing learners, i-Human Patients simulated cases are available to prepare them to succeed on clinical exams. As for undergraduate nursing learners, the Next Generation NCLEX aligned decision making model prepares them to ultimately think like nurses.
Other cases include integrated learning, exercises, and assessments to help learners fully understand cases and remediate when they make incorrect and incomplete decisions. Each case can be configured to the level of the learner and can be scaffolded throughout their curriculum.
Through use of i-Human Patients cases, learners will be able to measure and improve patient assessment and diagnostic reasoning skills, while integrating the learning of basic science concepts in a clinical context. Another feature of the software is that the platform offers more engaging interactive learning experiences with over 500 published virtual patient encounters.
Each encounter then offers a broad range of presentations and diagnosis. Along with being ADA compliant and providing individualized evidence-based coaching and feedback, i-Human Patients is available anywhere that has internet access through a web-browser.
Institutions employing i-Human Patients also benefit from ADA compliance and 24/7 program availability. For them, the objective, uniform and evidence-based evaluation offered through i-Human Patients helps ensure that the cognitive skills not easily addressed by high-cost mannequin and standardized patient encounters are attained.
This focus in combination with detailed individual and group/cohort analytics helps instructors work with easy to use point-and-click authoring systems. Through the systems they can create their own “share and share-alike” cases with access to a database of thousands of shared medical media assets. They can also choose to create derivative works.
With formative (low-stakes learning) and summative (high-stakes testing) modes, with full functioning video repository – closed captioning, playback speed controls, bandwidth transcoding — clinical simulation instructors are able to help ensure their learners readiness for real patients.
Note: At this time i-Human Patients is only available to learners through university partnerships. The i-Human Patients platform currently services, allopathic medical schools, osteopathic medical schools, graduate nursing programs, undergraduate nursing programs, physician assistant schools, hospitals and healthcare systems. The company does not offer standalone accounts for learners.
Healthcare Simulation Conferences like SimGHOSTS, SSIH, and INACSL are great places to see i-Human Patients in person!
Prior History of i-Human Patients
In February 2013, IHP attended the 13th annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare, and the i-Human Patients simulated patient platform won a Best in Show award. Then, in January 2013, the company announced that the American Medical Association would be providing grant funding for the development of simulated, interactive patient encounter cases on our platform, to help transform medical education.
Initially, the customer and content partner list included world class medical schools and/or faculty at nursing simulation programs such as UC San Francisco, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Tufts, University at Buffalo, Northwestern, Rush Medical College and others. In addition to a growing number of medical schools, the platform has recently been adopted by osteopathic, nurse practitioner and physician assistant schools, and almost 100 educators are now developing new patient encounter cases.
In October 2014, IHP attended the HealthTech Conference as one of the 45 start-up company exhibitors. i-Human Patients was selected by a panel of VC judges to pitch our product on the conference main stage and named as finalists for the 2014 Most Promising HealthTech Company of the Year.
Following this success, in January 2015, IHP attended the 15th annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare and was awarded runner-up for best in show in the Serious Games and Virtual Environments Competition in the Developing Commercial Interest Large Company category.
