Vantari VR to introduce virtual right heart catheter training course

The training programme was first developed in 2017 by an Australian cardiologist together with Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
By Adam Ang
01:36 am
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Credit: Vantari VR

A virtual reality-based right heart catheter training programme will soon come to Vantari VR's platform. 

The Australian VR startup has partnered with Dr Martin Brown, a cardiologist and associate clinical professor at Macquarie University, who first developed the training course with Janssen Pharmaceuticals in 2017. The training programme has since been approved by the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.

The programme covers three stages: the first stage will train clinicians in performing catheterisation; the second stage involves the recognition of waveforms from real patient cases; and the final stage is the management of complications. 

WHY IT MATTERS

The catheter training programme was supposed to be launched nationwide last year but was suspended due to COVID-19 restrictions. Since then, Dr Brown has developed a virtual course utilising Vantari VR's platform, which allowed the training to be performed in a virtual space – the world's first in medical training, he claims. 

Present training, said Dr Brown, involves doctors being taught the procedure on live patients. The course covers preparing the patient down to insertion of a Swan Ganz Catheter and blood sample extractions. 

Turning to a VR platform will enable catheter training in a "safe, complicated-free environment," Dr Brown said, ultimately raising not only trainees' confidence and skill in inserting catheters but also in recognising disease patterns and managing complications in a "protected manner" without risk to real patients.  

THE LARGER TREND

Recently, Vantari VR has been tapped by Nepean Hospital, a teaching hospital in New South Wales, to add virtual reality training into its ICU department curriculum. Over a three-year period, the hospital will deploy the startup's VR platform and jointly develop a procedural training module that involves airway management in critically ill patients. 

Vantari's technology has also been rolled out for training critical care practitioners at three tertiary hospitals, Fiona Stanley Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Westmead Hospital. 

ON THE RECORD

"The right heart catheter program is an exciting addition to our platform and opens up an array of potential applications in interventional cardiology," Dr Nishanth Krishnananthan, co-founder of Vantari VR, commented.

"Our collaboration with A/P Brown started almost a year ago and what a journey it has been. Creating a complex cardiology procedure in VR would have seemed unfathomable a few years ago but the technology has grown rapidly and we are proud to be leading the way at Vantari," co-founder Dr Vijay Paul also shared.

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