Chief Learning Officer Magazine is running an article by Lindsay Edmonds Wickman which features Outside the Wire, a VEILS® developed last year to help train the US Army’s Forward Support Company:

Imagine being in a hostile foreign country commanding a unit of fresh-faced soldiers. You want to be prepared, you want to make good decisions and you want to be a leader.

But how can you truly prepare someone for this role? One possible answer is simulations, such as Outside the Wire, a WILL Interactive Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulation (VEILS®), a cross between a feature film and a computer game that immerses individuals into potentially real situations and circumstances.

“Just the opening scene of Outside the Wire, where you have people who are being shot and killed [is] enough to awaken lieutenants, who [will] now understand the impact of their decisions — that they’re responsible for lives under their leadership,” said Gayle Olszyk, deputy to the commander for training at the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and Schools.
“What choices you make are going to impact a lot of other people. That’s a reality that is very difficult to present to an officer in a written scenario. This is the reality of what you’re going to be facing when you get to Iraq.”

Read the full article here.

by Tom Urtz
as published in eHealthcare Strategy & Trends

Every marketer’s playbook includes a chapter on customer service.

Remind the public of your philosophy. Recount warm deeds. Highlight delighted patients. And if the satisfaction rating agencies have good things to say, consider going public with the data.

On the tactical front, these moves are all appropriate. But step back and ask the bigger question. Does your organization have a strategy to improve customer service beyond the oft-repeated nostrums of treating patients like family and playing nice with co-workers?

Washington (DC) Hospital Center has one. Count on others to follow its lead.

Mark Smith, MD, chairman of emergency medicine at the 926-bed hospital, sat through a screening of Hate Comes Home,an intense, interactive DVD aimed at overcoming prejudice among high school students. Actors create the environment, then viewers are presented with a series of on-screen choices. How they respond at critical points dictates how the story unfolds.

“I could tell it worked because I had tears in my eyes,” says Smith.

Moved by the power of the tool, he met with James F. Caldas, president of Washington Hospital Center, urging him to subscribe to the same immersion approach to customer service.

Caldas agreed, and the hospital engaged Potomac, MD-based WILL Interactive, Inc., the creator of Hate Comes Home,to develop a hospital-specific video program to expose employees to the consequences – good and otherwise – of their choices. The result is The Anatomy of Care,a dramatic portrayal of life in a hospital, where viewers make choices and witness the responses.
Read more…

Sharon’s interview on WFED Radio.