As trauma scenarios come in many different forms within emergency settings, efficiently training learners for all possible situations can be challenging. Yet, a first responder or practitioner’s training can ultimately impact patient safety and have a vast impact on instances of life or death. For this reason, VRpatients, a virtual reality simulation training platform, developed and successfully launched the company’s most robust enhancements to date, a trauma-enabled platform adding dozens more options for instructors to train, assess and recertify first responders and practitioners in EMS, nursing, and the military. “Real-life training without real-life consequences.”
“We listened to everyone who gave us input – from current customers to medical directors – for some of the country’s most recognized healthcare organizations, and we prioritized the input to determine what enhancements needed to be added,” explained Tom Cox, a former EMS paramedic and training director and currently the director of EMS Sales for VRpatients. “The result is the most realistic, flexible, and robust virtual [or online] simulation application platform available in the industry,” he added.
In terms of offerings, the new software update includes more than 2,800 new pieces of moulage art that allow instructors to choose from traumatic and medical emergencies and their required interventions. Examples of these interventions include abdominal distension, otorrhea, and peripheral edema, along with such as a variety of stabbings, gunshot wounds, contusions, lacerations, burns, avulsions, etc.
Further, VRpatients has added over 2,800 new art assets to the system that will allow learners to place moulage anywhere on the body with varying patterns and severity. Once the learner has identified the problem, they can then provide appropriate treatment through a variety of interventions. All of this hooked up to VRpatients’ one and only case logic system provides the learner with the ability to dictate what they should or shouldn’t do, set critical fails, and assign point values.
Upcoming VRpatients HealthySimulation.com Webinar: On May 25, 2002, at 1 PM PDT, UTC-7, Devin Marble, B.S., NRP, will present a webinar titled, “VRpatients: A Trauma-Enabled Platform for Nursing and EMS.” This presentation will showcase the latest improvements to the VRpatients virtual patient platform which now supports EMS and Nursing education.
Also included within the Trauma-Enabled Platform are 13 different skin conditions, including pale, jaundice, and diaphoresis. New interventions, including dressings, chest seals, and tourniquets, as well as spinal assessment and units of measurement for administering medications, are also included. Other primary features are the ability to adjust the time at which a clinical case should ideally be performed and an enhanced dialogue system which is slated to include the following:
- Unsolicited Dialogue: With Unsolicited Dialogue, users can now have the patient say things unprovoked, like “I hate needles” as they are hooked up to an IV.
- Calls: Users can call external resources and decide who is available for learners to call while on scene.
- Commands: Need to instruct patient to do something? The new command system makes learning how to give instructions to a patient clear.
“This is the closest thing to real-life you can find in any training,” added Cox. “If you look at our simulations, our patients, the environments, and the look and feel of the program, it’s the most real thing I’ve seen in my 40-year career. We are making it as authentic for users as we can.”
Another benefit of using the VRpatients’ case authoring tool or one of the pre-built, commonly occurring clinical case scenarios provided, is that users can assign a clinical case scenario to a learner, based on the skill or protocol they wish the learner to better understand. Educators are then able to immediately assess students in a realistic, real-time virtual environment that is both repeatable and replicable.
“We have been watching AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) grow in healthcare simulation, and we were hesitant at first because everything we saw was either for nursing or military,” said Robert Victorino, Portland Community College’s Paramedic and Clinical Coordinator. “We quickly found that with COVID, VRpatients was the perfect solution to deliver the same content to students in a format that was safe for learning,” he added.
Note, VRpatients is not intended to replace faculty or didactic or skills-based learning models, but rather to augment existing curriculums with a method to which modern learners are accustomed. The platform also provides the ability to train practitioners in high-risk, low-occurring cases where many life-threatening errors could occur without adequate training.
“VRpatients puts educators and their institutions, agencies, and other training programs at the cutting edge of learning,” emphasized Suzette Robinson, General Manager of VRpatients. “Educators realize they must adapt to younger learning preferences in order to stay relevant and be able to pivot quickly to unplanned, and even unprecedented circumstances like Covid. It’s truly real-life training without real-life consequences,” she added.
More About VRpatients
Founded in 2018, VRpatients is a physiologically based clinical training platform that immerses a healthcare provider or first responder into actual clinical case scenarios, allowing them to assess, diagnose and treat patients in real-time. Available through a web-based platform or through a full clinical simulation experience using a virtual reality headset such as the Oculus, Pico, or HTC Vive headsets.
VRpatients allow first responders to test and expand their clinical skills, reducing the likelihood of critical performance failure. It’s real-life training without real-life consequences. Subscription-based options are flexible, based on the organization’s needs.