Content Standards

Innovation and scientific accuracy are at the heart of everything we do.

Our mission at BioDigital is to make health and the human body understandable to all people.


Purpose


Better understanding of the human body for patients and professionals lowers costs, improves outcomes, and saves lives. BioDigital provides a customizable platform for mapping the virtual human body, to see inside and compare normal and abnormal anatomy in interactive 3D. Over 100 million health conversations across the globe are powered by BioDigital’s 3D anatomy, disease and treatment visualization technology each year.




Content Overview


Developed over 10 years of research, the current 3D model of the human body and content library contains over a 1,000 3D models, consisting of hundreds of thousands of discretely selectable structures. Medical accuracy is at the core of our process and development. The human body models are based on a combination of surgical and gross dissection photographs, published anatomical atlases, cadavers, diagnostic imaging, cryosection (including those collected from the Visible Human Project) and expert review.


The BioDigital 3D model library is organized by specialty, spanning Allergy & Immunology, Cardiology, Dentistry, Dermatology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Gynecology, Infectious Disease, Maternal Health, Nephrology, Neurology & Psychiatry, Obstetrics, Oncology & Hematology, Ophthalmology, Orthopedics, Otolaryngology, Pediatrics, Physical Therapy, Primary Care, Pulmonology, Rheumatology, and Urology. The most commonly searched disease conditions are available, alongside animated content on pathology, cross sections and microanatomy, physiology, procedures, treatments, and pharmacology topics. The 3D health content library is continually expanding with new topics added quarterly, based on consumer trends and customer value assessment. In addition our platform includes over 100 curated anatomical 3D quizzes, using our medically accurate human anatomy model.


BioDigital content is medically accurate, optimized for real time performance, based on web standards so accessible on any device, and tailored to meet the needs of modern education.




Content Development Process


Every piece of content we create is outlined and storyboarded by our team of in-house medical illustrators, who have Master’s-level degrees in life sciences and the art of communication. Education and scientific accuracy are at the heart of everything we do, and each concept starts with defining the learning objectives for the target user. Based on strict reference standards to establish medical accuracy with oversight by our in-house Medical Director, we craft an interactive story grounded in empirical instructional design principles.


Once content is storyboarded, our team of 3D animators brings the concept to life in Maya, a 3D software used for high-end game and cinema production. The custom 3D models and animations are run through BioDigital’s proprietary software to make them widely available on our cloud-based interactive platform, allowing users to access anytime from any device. Once in the platform, each 3D interactive is inspected for optimal real time performance and reviewed by medical illustrators to ensure medical accuracy and effective learning.



Team


Our content production team is led by in-house medical illustrators and technical 3D artists with graduate degrees and accomplished experience in their discipline. Our comprehensive male and female anatomy models are scrutinized and approved by our in-house Medical Director, alongside a team of credentialed MDs. We collectively bring decades of experience in health visualization, strategic thinking, and seamless production to every project.



References


3D Models


Every piece of content in the BioDigital library is supported by a minimum of 3 reputable sources, and cross referenced to maintain accuracy. These sources include established anatomy atlases, peer-reviewed articles, volumetric data, and photographic references.



Anatomical Descriptions


Descriptions for anatomical structures are a combination of descriptions written by BioDigital, and descriptions from the National Institute of Health (NIH) NCI Thesaurus and Wikipedia. The main references for BioDigital written descriptions of anatomical structures include gold standard anatomy and physiology textbooks. Written descriptions for health conditions and treatments include references to peer-reviewed academic journals, in addition to academic textbooks.


Translations


BioDigital 3D models are available in eight languages: English, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese (Brazil). Translations are sourced from a combination of human translators and machine translation. BioDigital regularly updates and improves translations using feedback received from clients and with human translation of any new structures added to complete anatomy models.


Approach to DEI


We are all human, and are committed to making health and the human body understandable for all people. As we expand our library of interactive content conditions, we continue to showcase underrepresented groups. We thoroughly research health condition demographics, and display conditions on the most common race and gender. The platform features are WCAG 2.1 compliant, with improved usability for a wider range of audiences, and improved accessibility for people with disabilities. Our language is approachable and we target a student and consumer audience for concept comprehension, with a focus on health literacy for all.



Trusted By


Over 4 million students, teachers, clinicians, and professionals use the BioDigital Human to help communicate complex health concepts and breakthrough treatments. BioDigital technology is used by 3 of the top 5 medical schools, 3 of the 5 largest education publishers, 4 of the top 5 largest medical device companies, and 3 of the top 5 largest pharmaceutical companies.




Editorial Integrity


Our Professional Services team creates custom 3D interactives for medical device and pharmaceutical industry partners. While some of this custom content is proprietary and unavailable for broader use, select 3D interactives on generic physiology, pathophysiology, and procedures may become available within our base platform. These inclusions are added for the benefit of our users and adhere to the same content standards established for other 3D interactives available in the platform.




Custom Content - Our Professional Services


Partners often request the creation of specific, custom, or proprietary content for use in our 3D interactive platform. Our Professional Services team, composed of the same expert medical illustrators and 3D animators that create our platform content, is enlisted to create this custom content. Our team works closely with client experts to craft an accurate, custom educational experience for the intended audience. Depending on the agreement , this content may be created for exclusive use.


Often, medical device and pharmaceutical customers will utilize these services to visualize a product, procedure or treatment in our interactive virtual body. Leveraging our vast library of 3D models and proprietary pipeline, BioDigital is able to provide these services more affordably and with a faster turnaround time than ever before possible.


Following our Content Development Process, every piece of content we create is outlined and storyboarded by our team of in-house medical illustrators, who have Master’s-level degrees in life sciences and the art of communication. Education and scientific accuracy is at the heart of everything we do, and each concept starts with defining the learning objectives for the target user. Based on strict reference standards to establish accuracy with oversight by our in-house Medical Director, we craft an interactive story grounded in empirical instructional design principles. The storyboarded content may be reviewed by the client’s experts and approved for 3D production.


Once the storyboard is externally approved, our team of 3D animators brings the concept to life in 3D software used for high-end game and cinema production. The custom 3D models and animations are run through BioDigital’s proprietary software to optimize them for real time interaction in a web browser. This content is then deployed to our cloud-based interactive platform. Once in the platform, each 3D interactive is inspected for optimal performance and reviewed by medical illustrators to ensure medical accuracy and effective learning aligned to the client’s objectives. Finally, each interactive is signed off by the client’s experts, added to the client’s library, and available for unique use from any web browser. The centralized cloud based nature of this content also makes it easily updatable to support the rapidly evolving needs of our customers.




Evidence


For medical students


  • 16% better than cadaver training

  • 43% better than textbook training


For surgeons


  • 90% of global surgeons found it to be equivalent, or more useful than other resources

BioDigital’s technology is empirically proven to be more effective for learning outcomes than other mediums. In a peer-reviewed 2018 study published in the Annals of Anatomy, first year medical students who used BioDigital 3D anatomy as a teaching tool performed 16% better on assessments than students who used cadaver prosections. In a 2019 study published in the journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, medical students who used BioDigital technology as a resource for cleft palate surgical training performed 43% better than students who reviewed the same material in textbooks.


With cloud-based accessibility and multi-language translations, the BioDigital platform is an ideal tool for widespread global education that is unrestricted by socioeconomic barriers. In 2018, a study was published in the Journal of Surgical Education on a 5-Year Assessment of Demographics, Usage and Global Effect of using BioDigital’s internet-based simulation for cleft palate surgery education. The study surveyed over 4,000 users (primarily surgeons) from 136 countries (35% of users from developing countries) who used the internet-based interactive cleft surgery platform. The survey results showed 90% of users found BioDigital’s interactive technology to be equivalent or more useful than other resources for surgical education.


Product


The BioDigital platform was built to educate and provide an optimal experience for every user. Rooted in instructional design principles and informed by feedback from industry leaders in healthcare education, we work to deliver the best customizable educational experience for everyone. Learn more about the platform here.