Oculus is being more aggressive in the medical training field. The virtual reality specialist revealed on the 29th of August that they will deploy new VR training solutions in 11 health institutions in the US.

The announcement follows Oculus’ partnership in 2017 with the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital (CHLA) to train medical students to respond to vital pediatric emergencies.

A SUCCESSFUL VENTURE IN 2017

A 6-month pilot study was conducted last year around a simulation created by the start-ups AiSolve and BioflightVR to validate the effectiveness of this type of learning.

It was such a success that the hospital now requires all of its clinicians or assistants to undergo this training, and it is available as an option for all students.

DEPLOYMENT OF THE PROGRAM

As a result, Oculus and CHLA are expanding this research program to 11 additional institutions:

Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Kaiser Permanente Health Network (Southern California), Medical University of Vienna, New York University / Langone Medical Center, Stanford University / Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, University of Bern, University of Washington, Yale New Haven Health.

Oculus will provide them with Oculus Go helmets, the company emphasizing the simplicity of installation of the device: no need for a computer or a dedicated space, just to put on the device. Deployments will begin this fall.

TRAIN ON UNUSUAL INCIDENTS WITH HIGH STAKES

Kathryn Schaivone, a specialist trainer at Kaiser Permanente, reported that at present they could only do training on critical incidents, such as pediatric resuscitation, between two and four times a year because they cannot monopolize their teams too often. Moreover, that virtual reality makes it possible to increase the frequency of participation in simulations.

The first module concerns pediatric resuscitation in the event of a crisis or shock. The next ones will work on other cases, as CHLA researchers hope to gather advice and opinions from their colleagues in other hospitals to determine good practices.

“Now that we have this proof of concept, we are thinking about other scenarios and skills that are considered infrequent but with high stakes, for example in areas such as emergency medicine, critical care, and obstetrics,” says Dr. Todd Chang, CHLA’s project researcher.

VIRTUAL REALITY TRANSFORMS VOCATIONAL TRAINING

This Oculus announcement comes in a context of global growth for virtual or augmented reality training solutions.

The immersion phenomenon inherent in these technologies makes them more adapted to the retention of information for “practical” jobs than traditional theoretical training modules. In Europe, French companies are working on virtual learning for healthcare professionals, including SimforHealth, VirtualiSurg, and the Moveo Foundation.