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Creating your own virtual patients using the Patient Concept Authoring Tool

Build virtual patient scenarios with life-like conversation in a matter of hours.

Szabolcs Arnoczki avatar
Written by Szabolcs Arnoczki
Updated this week

The PCS Generative AI is a powerful conversation engine that allows you access to the Patient Concept Authoring Tool. Combined with the EZ Mode, which offers a simple overview of the most important aspects of a PCS patient scenario, you will be able to create your own custom patients in as little as a few hours.

Customizing patient scenarios - the concept

Your PCS Simulator comes with bundled patients that you can use for simulations straight away.

You can also use these patients as templates to create your very own patient scenarios.

The bundled patients themselves are as is, and you will not be able to make changes to them. In order to create new patients, you need to copy an existing one and use it as a template first.

Copying a bundled patient and using it as a template

  1. Go to app.pcs.ai and navigate to the Patients tab, then Open the patient you would like to use as a template:

  2. Click on the Copy button in the bottom right:

  3. This will create a copy of the patient. The copy will open up in a new window, and it will also appear in your My Patients tab in the future.
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Editing your custom patient in EZ Mode

Once a copy is created, it is ready to be edited.

Start by renaming the copied patient:

This is an important step, as the patient will say this name when asked during the simulation. The highlighted sections on the Basics tab will also affect the conversation, so change these too if needed.

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Editing the patient's conversation

Click on the Patient Concept tab to edit the conversation of your patient:

The Patient Concept is organized into 14 sections. Click into any of the textboxes to edit or completely rewrite the section of the Patient Concept. Hover over theicon to learn more about what each section entails.

To test the changes you make in the Patient Concept in real time, click on the buttons on the right side to open the Conversation Tester.

Tips for writing the Patient Concept:

  • Think of the Patient Concept as an SP training material, which contains all the information the SP ought to know about to be able to successfully simulate a scenario.
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  • The Generative AI responsible for the conversation will accurately respond to questions covered in the Patient Concept. Since the AI is based on a large language model, the responses may sligthly differ from simulation to simulation, but the "message" behind them will be the same.
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  • For anything NOT included in the Patient Concept, the AI will come up with believeable responses. These responses will likely be different from simulation to simulation.
    ​For example, if multiple students ask about the name of the patient's father, the AI will come up with different names unless it is specified in the Patient Concept.
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  • While AI technology is improving at a rapid rate, it is still not on the level of a human brain. As such, the AI is unable to make logical deductions.
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    ​Take a look at the following sentence: "Patient is concerned about pain because she fell onto her left hip this morning". Humans are able to make the logical deduction instinctively that the patient is having pain because she fell onto her hip.
    ​The AI is unable to make this deduction and when asked if falling on her hip hurt, she will respond with no. A better wording of this sentence would be: "Patient is feeling pain and is concerned because she fell onto her hip this morning."
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  • Create redundancies. If you see that your patient does not give the expected response, repeat the related sentence in the Patient Concept with different words.
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  • Write the Patient Concept in chronological order, and if the patient has multiple concerns/symptoms, specify which one was first.
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  • Avoid overly technical jargon. Write in the third person, in the language and style that the patient would use.
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  • The patients (aside from special cases) do not know their diagnosis, or how their symptoms correlate. Keep this in mind when writing the Patient Concept.
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  • Include the Avatar's appearance in the Patient Concept.

Setting up the Objectives

When you copy a bundled patient, your copied custom patient will come with the basic structure of the Objectives and Credits, but you will need to define what the requirements are.

The layout of the Objectives tab is as follows:

Editing and Defining Credits

To customize a credit:

  1. Click the pencil icon next to a credit to open the editing window.

  2. Choose a criteria type from the dropdown menu:

Criteria Types

Conversation based criteria

  • Speech Conversation Responds With: Tracks what conversation topics the AI uses during the simulation (found in Advanced Mode->States->Conversation)*.

  • Conversation Including: Tracks specific words or phrases said by either the student or the patient.

  • Log Entry Including: Tracks keywords in simulation log entries.

*Only on certain simulator service levels
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Event-Based Criteria

  • Log Entries – Match keywords in the simulation log.

  • Vital Sign Values – Heart rate, respiratory rate, changes, etc.

  • Time Passed – Track elapsed time or time limits.

  • Diagnose & Treat Orders – Items requested from the Diagnose and Treat feature.

  • Physical Exam – Specific actions like palpation or auscultation.

  • End-of-Simulation Quiz – Based on quiz answers.

  • SOAP Note Entries – Keywords or phrases entered in SOAP notes.

You can use one or multiple conditions to trigger each credit.

Each credit can have multiple criteria, and you can specify whether these must be met in order or in any order.

Using “Speech Conversation Responds With”

This option uses predefined clinical interview topics from the Conversation Tab to recognize and score specific types of questions or statements during the simulation.

  • You can select general or specific topics.

  • Example: The AI might detect any question related to the presenting complaint and award credit accordingly.

Using “Conversation Including”

This option is keyword-based and allows fine-tuned control. You can choose to match:

  • Q&A pair: Keywords can appear in either the question, the answer, or split across both.

  • Only in Q: Match only the question.

  • Only in A: Match only the answer.

Keyword Syntax Guide (All case-insensitive)

  1. Space = AND
    Example: fever cough → both fever and cough must be present.

  1. | = OR
    Example: nausea|vomiting → either nausea or vomiting must be present.

  2. Quotes " " = Exact match
    Example: "chest pain" → matches the exact phrase chest pain.

  3. Combining
    Example: headache|dizziness fatigue|weakness → must contain either headache or dizziness, and either fatigue or weakness.

  4. Exclusion using !

    • !fever → must not contain fever.

    • !fever cough → must not contain fever, but must contain cough.

Adding and Structuring Objectives and Credits

  • You can add new Credits to existing Objectives or create new Objectives as needed.

  • Define how each credit is fulfilled and how many points it's worth.

  • Combine multiple criteria for more accurate scoring.

Vital Signs

You can access and edit the starting vitals of the patient scenario on the Vital Signs tab.

Click on any of the numbers or the waveforms to change them.

Support Materials

You will be able to find and edit the various supporting resources on this tab:

  • Hints & Tips: Opens a rich text editor that allows you to edit the Hints and Tips, add images, embed videos, etc.

  • Patient File: Similar to the Hints & Tips, this section also allows you to edit the text, add images and embed videos into the Patient File

  • Background info: You can document the changes to your custom patient scenario here for later review

  • Debrief Content: A rich text editor for the Debrief Content that appears to students when they finish their simulations

Diagnose & Treat

The Diagnose & Treat allows students to request various labs, imaging and other diagnostics, as well as request consultations, define the patient's diagnosis and treatment options.

The available items in the Diagnose & Treat is grouped into 4 tabs, but the editing process is identical for each tab:

Hover over an item in the list to highlight it.

Clicking on the name of the item allows you to rename it.

Click the + Add Item button to add new items to the list, and click the to delete existing items.

Clicking on an item also displays it in the right side of the window:

You can edit the text, add or remove images, and embed videos in each item.

Note: None of the Diagnose & Treat items affect the patient's vitals in any way.

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