Computer-generated, web-based environments, known as 'virtual worlds', allow for novel and innovative methods of high-quality remote interaction. Virtual worlds have been used in various organisational contexts, including healthcare, though there remains potential for new ways that they may be used to facilitate non-clinical healthcare-related interacitons.
This Thesis investigated use of virtual worlds to improve collaboration and engagement in healthcare. Results of research detailed here contribute to new understanding of how interpersonal interactions are altered in a virtual world context, and of drivers, barriers and implications of possible use of virtual worlds in a number of non-clinical healthcare-related contexts, which had not previously been empircally tested...