London, UK-based FundamentalVR has added to its educational platform—Fundamental Surgery—with @HomeVR, a tool that will allow for accredited educational simulations to be used on standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus.
According to the company, “The hardware-agnostic software solution can mimic the physical cues of surgical actions, medical tools, and tissue variations. Studies have shown that this aids learning in helping trainees develop the muscle memory essential for surgical skills. The platform utilizes off-the-shelf hardware (PCs/laptops, VR headset and haptic arms), making it less than a tenth of the cost of current learning practices.”
According to CEO Richard Vincent, FundamentalVR decided to launch @HomeVR now due to user feedback during the COVID crisis. “Considering the current pandemic, we are hearing from surgeons, supervisors and trainees that our new @HomeVR modality is needed now more than ever. We have been working on @HomeVR for many months and decided to release the capability now to meet the needs of our customers and medical professionals worldwide who are now looking for new ways to teach and train.”
“With @HomeVR, surgeons, residents and trainees have the ability to maintain, practice and learn skills from anywhere, including in their homes, using standalone VR headsets. Additionally, thanks to our single user login, supervisors and users alike can access insights around capabilities remotely and monitor how users are progressing. We’ve been pleased with the positive feedback we’ve received so far from the medical community and will continue to bring new features to our platform to make sure our users are able to easily practice anywhere.”
The company is continuously expanding its virtual reality capabilities. According to Vincent, “One capability that the team and I have wanted to bring to Fundamental Surgery and have been working on for some time now is the ability for multiple users to log into and practice in the same simulation. With self-isolation rules causing residents and students to continue their lessons and practice remotely, we actually just launched our multiuser capability this last week. Now, unlimited users can enter the same virtual OR through Fundamental Surgery and work together to perform a virtual procedure. This technology allows the students to take turns practicing skills and the supervisors to monitor their steps and ask them questions in real-time.”
“We are continuing to look at additional capabilities and technologies we can bring to Fundamental Surgery that help our trainees and their supervisors continue their work from multiple locations.”
