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Many studies have shown the ability of interior design elements (e.g., artwork, nature, home elements) to elicit positive emotions on hospital users thereby enhancing the healing process. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether such elements can affect users’ emotional responses during a VR experience. In this study we explored the influence of interior design elements (i.e., landscape poster, painting, plant and home chair), on the participants’ emotional responses after being exposed to 3D virtual hospital rooms. We used a short version of Zipers scales, developed by Zuckerman, to explore participants’ emotional responses regarding 28 rooms, resulting from all the possible combinations of the identified elements plus a neutral and a negative room. Our sample included 30 university students. The results show that the more elements present in the hospital room the more positive the emotional response. The landscape and artwork elements emitted positive responses, whereas the home chair did not.

The development of virtual hospitals enables the interoperability of the various medical services offered by different institutions. Due to the experience in the exploitation of previous European telemedicine projects an open Euro-Mediterranean consortium proposes the Virtual Euro-Mediterranean Hospital (VEMH) initiative. The provision of the same advanced technologies to the European and Mediterranean Countries should contribute to their better dialogue for integration. VEMH will provide a platform consisting of a satellite and terrestrial link for the application of medical e-learning, real-time telemedicine and e-health. The methodologies for the VEMH are medical-needs-driven instead of technology-driven. They supply new management tools for virtual medical communities and allow management of clinical outcomes for implementation of evidence-based medicine. As data and computing resources in a virtual hospital are distributed over many sites the concept of the Grid should be integrated with other communication networks and platforms. A promising approach is the creation of an invisible grid, hiding complexity for both application developers and end-users and development of a Grid tools suite. VEMH will provide access to the required quality of medical services depending on the individual needs of each of the partners.

The PREPaRe system is a patient-oriented internet-based information system that is able to store, combine, process and visualize all types of medical data that are part of a “personal electronic medical record”. This paper describes the visualization and interaction aspects of the PREPaRe system which is designed with respect to the user’s needs. Special attention is given to the visualization of and interaction within a three-dimensional virtual hospital.

A virtual hospital is realized as an interactive information system based on a 3D- model of a real hospital. In preparation for a future stay, a patient can visit the location, where later a therapy may take place, and get a first impression or look at the data in his electronic patient record, as described in [1]. To be able to experience an almost realistic impression of the real healthcare process, it is also necessary to offer the patient the possibility to see and interact with doctors, nurses, administration personnel and also other patients in the virtual hospital. The authors present a system of virtual actors that can be used to fill the wards and stations with virtual life. One special purpose for employing virtual actors is the simulation of diagnostic or therapeutic treatment. For example, to present an orthopaedic diagnosis, a virtual doctor can take the leg of a virtual patient and make a reflex test with a rubber hammer.