The objective of the PETRHA project is to develop a serious game for students in Physiotherapy (the international term for Kinesithérapie), a public which has not benefited from this technology in Europ sofar. The clinical process involves a series of essential steps performed by a physiotherapist in a specific order which makes it possible to plan a rééducation program adapted to the patient, his or her context and pathology. Schools use simulation as a tool for teaching this method, but its limitations (simulated patients not realistic enough, restricted time and budgets) encourage them to implement new educational supports giving the students more intensive training opportunities. The project has 5 partners. Their fields of competence are complementary, and their respective expertises are our best guarantee for a successful venture. The Mairie de Bègles, a local collectivity, has developed a policy of orienting formation towards TIC. Its Service of assistance to senior people will be involved in the project. The Institut Régional de Formation Sanitaire et Sociale Aquitaine Croix-Rouge (leader on the project; France) the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (Portugal) and the Public University of Navarre (Spain) bélong to the european network of Physiotherapists (ENPHE) and are all experts both in simulation techniques and in e.learning. Our last Partner, Interaction Healthcare, is one of the leading firms in the development of virtual educational equipment, namely serious games. Our project’s first objective is to implement the version 1 of a serious game giving the students the opportunity to practice intensively this réeducational approach and to obtain a direct feedback on their performance. The serious game will be composed of modules (patients, pathologies, equipment, living environment) allowing teachers to crate numerous virtual clinical cases, and students to résolve them. The patients target defined for this firt version is senior people, a population central to the préoccupation of european policies. The project’s second objective is to develop a MOOC for the benefit of other physiotherapeutic formations, or even for other paramedical formations. It will allow them to develop additionnal modules targeting different populations, other physiotherapeutic specialties or even the clinical approach of other paramédical professions. A living lab including non-partners establishments interrested in incrementing the project will also be created to assist the development of these new modules. The third objective is the creation of a booklet of research on a specific population, namely senior people. The booklet will be used as a document of reference for the writing of research on furtther populations targeted in for the development of new modules for the serious game The fourth and lad last objective is to create, while developping the serious game, a scale of scores allowing the students to evaluate the level of skill they have reached. This scale of scores will later be converted in ECTS crédits, and its ambition is to become a european tool of reference for students as well as professionnals.
Prior to starting this project, the IRFSS Aquitaine and its two academic partners, the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) in Spain and the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP) in Portugal wondered: How could we enable physiotherapy students to train themselves intensively on clinical reasoning? Indeed, beyond the knowledge linked with their core profession, these students need to master all the steps of this healthcare process. The best way to master it is by being able to practice intensively and regularly with simulated clinical situations as close as possible to reality. Yet, the internships carried out during their studies and the simulation sessions provided by the 3 partners are not sufficient. Exchanges with the French company Interaction Healthcare, leader in the creation of innovative digital solutions in the healthcare sector and partner of the IRFSS on other projects, brought the partners to decide to create a Serious Game. This flexible tool, usable everywhere, appeared as the most adapted answer to this need of intense practice on various clinical situations. In the allocated time, every typology of patients couldn’t be addressed. Therefore, we chose to focus on the elderly problematic. All European countries share the same concerns regarding the care of this population. Health policies promote solutions permitting the elderly to stay at home, with interventions of home helpers and healthcare professionals. This is how we associated a 5th partner, the city of Bègles, through its home support service, which enabled us to apprehend the situation of patients at home as best as we could. The first version of PETRHA Serious Game that we created during these 2 years of partnership provides practice on clinical reasoning in geriatrics for European physiotherapy students. Many clinical cases based on real situations are proposed so that, thanks to repetition, they can acquire a methodology for collecting data, establishing a physiotherapy diagnosis and prioritizing the objectives. All the partners were involved in its development and today the game is now translated in 4 languages, which means that all the European students who wish can train themselves on the clinical cases proposed. Beyond the Serious Game, we decided to create 2 other tools. The second tool is a booklet of study on the elderly population enabling to enrich the serious game’s clinical cases thanks to the parameters studied. This work was led by the IRFSS and the home helpers of the city of Bègles. All European trainers can rely on this study translated in 4 languages to design their own clinical cases. This study can also be used as a model to study other populations. Finally, the last tool is a MOOC, which completes the Serious Game. Its purpose is to help the users, students and trainers, to understand the game so that they can create clinical cases and play. They can get the information they need thanks to short explanatory videos and a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). The achievement of these 3 productions was made possible thanks to the great commitment of every partner. Added to the meetings and the training activities, they had working meetings almost every week. This enabled them to adjust the work with the fixed schedule. In the end, the serious game is even more efficient than the originally defined objective. It was tested on a large scale during the European Petrha Cup and this test confirmed the attractiveness and the pedagogical interest of our productions. Today, some universities wish to join the PETRHA adventure by creating their own clinical cases and the students showed a true desire for learning thanks to this digital tool. We are working on the pursuit of the project as the current partners have been contacted by other universities to work on other target populations. In the meantime, the work led with the home helpers for the creation of the study booklet drove the IRFSS and its academic partners to submit a new strategic partnership project called ATHOME. Selected in July 2017, its aim is to develop with 7 partners innovative solutions intended for European home helpers.