London’s Middlesex University has turned to Oxford Medical Simulation in a bid to provide training for nursing students using the company's virtual reality (VR) platform.

The institution has bought five VR headsets that will help students practice treating patients in interactive scenarios and receive feedback on their work. 

“This technology is allowing students to make mistakes without repercussions,” said Fiona Suthers, head of the clinical skills department at Middlesex University.

“The students can feel empowered to make decisions that they wouldn’t feel comfortable making because can make mistakes safely and take more risks – which enhances their learning process.”

WHY IT MATTERS

The 20 scenarios that they will have access to through the technology look at patients with diabetes, COPD and sepsis.

According to the Sepsis Trust, around 210,000 patients are estimated to develop sepsis annually in England, with a mortality rate of over 20%.

“Sepsis is one of the key scenarios because it is a time critical condition. You have an hour to ensure that the diagnosis is made and appropriate prescribed antibiotics are administered as every hour delay increases the patient’s mortality rate by 8%,” said Sarah Chitongo, midwifery educator at Middlesex University.

“Sepsis destroys internal vital organs. One of the first clinical indications is looking at the patient’s clinical presentation. Sepsis patients will display visible signs and this technology recreates the typical indicators such as patches of discoloured skin, shivers, sleepy or difficult to rouse and shortness of breath.”

THE LARGER PICTURE

Over 30 organisations in the UK are said to be using Oxford Medical Simulation’s platform, including Oxford University - at the OxSTaR (Oxford Simulation, Teaching and Research) centre, part of John Radcliffe Hospital.

A suite of players in the health tech space, however, have turned to VR in an effort to increase and improve access to education and practice. These include FundamentalVR, maker of a surgical training platform that combines VR and haptic sensors, which closed a $5.67 million Series A round last October.

ON THE RECORD

Dr Jack Pottle, chief medical officer of Oxford Medical Simulation, said in a statement: “We have developed OMS because we believe that training healthcare professionals in a flexible, zero-risk environment will transform patient care around the world.

“We learn best when learning from experience and our system will allow users at Middlesex to do just that – without putting patient’s [sic] lives at risks.”