Simulation-based Planning and Training Tool for Infectious Disease Outbreak, i.e., Pandemic Influenza

PandemicWorld (PW) will be designed as a tool to aid hospital and other medical treatment facilities staffs in managing the influx of a large number of patients that would result from an unexpected major outbreak of some form of contagious disease. PW will be designed as an analysis tool and real-time strategy game like simulation focused on hospital/medical treatment facility (MTF) resource management (traffic, triage, treatment management). Its objective is to allow hospital/MTF personnel to develop plans for how they will manage the influx of patients (pandemic victims or people with everyday needs such as accident victims, labor and delivery patients, etc.), space, medical supplies, treatment personnel, services, and so forth from the moment potentially infected people begin arriving through the time of their release. PW will provide the necessary scenario development tools to create an initial plan of action, analyze the plan to “harden” it, and to train on the plan. PW will be based upon the simulation builder’s toolkit created under DARPA’s RealWorld program. More important is that Total Immersion Software intends to use technology and program management techniques it has evolved out of the commercial computer game community, modified to meet the needs of the Federal Government.