Mixed and virtual reality companies are making big strides to incorporate immersive tech to help clinicians and doctors-in-training enhance their skills.
GigXR, a developer of holographic healthcare training, has now launched a new module focused on basic life support.
Created in partnership with Morlen Health, a physician-led medical group and subsidiary of Northwest Permanente, P.C., HoloScenarios: Basic Life Support uses mixed reality to simulate a person in need of CPR or a defibrillator. It is meant to be an option for instructors to remotely or in-person train first responders, providers, medical and nursing students, public safety professionals and community members.
The immersive holographic training delivers a realistic scenario meant to enhance learning and retention of critical skills. In the module, learners can see and interact with both a hologram patient experiencing cardiac arrest and medical equipment, “enabling lifelike, safe-to-fail collaboration between participants and the patient in their real-world environments,” GigXR said in a press release.
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“The realism of the holographic patient draws a deeper and more emotional connection for learners, and replicates a sense of urgency and patient distress to prompt timely intervention in a way that a manikin, whether state-of-the-art or a simple task trainer, cannot match,” Patricia Ramos, M.D., said in the announcement. Ramos is senior emergency physician and medical director at the Center for Innovative Medical Simulation at Kaiser Permanente Northwest.
In 2023, mixed reality is poised to come into the mainstream, according to David King Lassman, founder at GigXR. “With new initiatives, announced seemingly every other week, there is greater awareness for this cutting-edge yet intuitive technology that’s pushing holographic content development and software innovation forward," he said.
A demo of the new HoloScenario training on basic life support. Credit: GigXR
GigXR was formed in 2019 by an expert team of educators, nursing specialists, 3D designers and technologists to address the shortcomings of traditional 2D curricula with cutting-edge immersive teaching and training solutions, according to the company.
The new HoloScenarios module offers two scenarios with varying degrees of difficulty. Instructors can also use complementary applications delivered by the platform for deeper exploration of conditions that require basic life support. All GigXR’s existing and future modules are designed to work together to reinforce learning objectives. Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Neurology scenarios are currently being developed with Morlen Health and the University of Michigan.
Leveraging Microsoft's HoloLens mixed reality headset and AR-enabled phones and tablets, the HoloScenarios app presents full clinical simulations with holographic patients and medical devices. Users can remotely join others in learning sessions and instructors can manually override to take learners across stages. The basic life support module is free to download and use for anyone with a GigXR Immersive Learning Platform license for this app.
“Traditional CPR training and simulation labs often require significant resources both at the infrastructure and faculty level,” Micah Thorp, D.O., M.D., president of Morlen Health and VP of business strategy for Northwest Permanente, said. “GigXR has created the platform to reach more learners—who now have greater access to our incredible network of medical experts and educators—and allow other institutions to replicate the high quality of training we are able to provide.”