Inadequately treated pain is an increasingly important issue for the healthcare system as patients demand better care and accreditation organizations focus on pain management. A critical component of pain treatment is pain assessment. Proper pain assessment is a complex task that interprets the results in the overall contextual environment of the patient. Training healthcare providers about pain assessment is difficult but essential. Pain assessment guides treatment, and ultimately the quality of care is based on the validity of accurate assessment. Pain Assessment via Role-play Internet delivered Simulation (PARIS) creates a software multimedia role-play simulation to teach healthcare providers how to properly assess pain and its effects on the quality of life. In PARIS, the learner assesses patients through an interactive simulated interview. The learner is questioned about his or her understanding of the pain assessment process. Targeted feedback is provided based on the learner's actions in the simulation. The simulations are based on common clinical problems and patient personality types and the instructional methodology utilizes validated cognitive learning models. Talaria has experience in creating educational simulations including projects that instruct health care providers about therapeutic communication in end of life care and simulator to teach pharmacological treatment of cancer pain.
