Hospital and clinics are under great pressure to control expenses and to generate revenue. Individuals have many options when it comes to medical treatment and where they receive this treatment. Physicians and specialists can affiliate with a variety of facilities. Insurance companies affiliate with some properties and physicians and not with others.
Driving is something people do on a regular basis. The driver’s mental processes and underlying behavior involve perception, learning process, problem solving, memory, attention, and emotion from inputs from the vehicle and external to the vehicle. Having a tool that can help physicians and therapists answer the questions “should the person be allowed to drive; if so, when; if not, why?” will be a major additional to those organizations with an interesting in one or more or the following fields of medicine:
DriveSafety has created a driving simulation system that provides clinicians –physicians and therapists – with a modern tool to evaluate perceptual, cognitive and motor-control abilities. A driving assessment of these abilities will help guide medical decision-making for further testing, functional outcomes, interventions or advice for other complex tasks and occupations (besides driving) that rely on sort term memory, divided attention, visual processing speed, spatial orientation and situational awareness. Driving simulation is a system level, functional test which combines component functions into an integrated, dynamic performance test to see how well patients perform and react “under the pressure of time.”
Clinics and medical facilities are not required to have an existing driving evaluation program to leverage this system and technology. The administrators or therapists do not have to be Certified Driving Rehabilitation Specialists. Therapists who deal with stroke, dementia and traumatic brain injury, for example, will find that impairments of memory, attention and perception will be quickly identified by impairments in driving skills and abilities associated with these brain functions. If driving is one of the patient’s stated goals, then information gained by using the simulator can be used for deciding the need for further testing such as a behind the wheel road test or for practice and more formal treatment regimens during neuro-rehabilitation.
The turn-key CDS clincial driving simulator is based on an actual car – a Ford Focus – giving all parties some face validation. The CDS Scenarios suite of virtual drives provide the OT and the patients a variety of driving situations including residential, suburban, urban, rural, industrial and freeway as well as various lighting (bright sunlight to dark nighttime) and weather conditions (clear, foggy, snowy). The virtual driving scenarios range from simple, adaptation drives and limited complexity to transitional drives that involved multiple real-world driving settings and various environmental factors. There are enough of them to avoid the clients from memorizing them. The driving scenarios are designed in accordance with AASHTO, MUTCD and ADED best practices for delivery of driver rehabilitation services.
The administrative interface is intuitive – the administrator can begin running virtual practice drives immediately. The administrator has the ability to play-back the patients’ practice drives, allowing the OT to point out to the patient the positive and negative behaviors and for the patient to learning and gain additional insight.
A suite of virtual drives involving a variety of common driving situations allows the therapists or clinicians to see their patients in a series of driving environments, from the simple to the complex.
Most clinics of a decent size can benefit from a validated driving simulator. The simulator will enable the medical practice to help provide evaluations and assessments, treatment options, and practice for rehabilitating patients. The system will provide added interest into the clinic by patients and their families, researchers, administrators, and the media. It is a new source of clinical revenue that can begin paying back immediately.
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