High fidelity medical simulation (HFMS) training is one of the few evidence-based educational practices demonstrated to reduce medical error rates and improve patient outcomes. However, traditional HFMS is costly, logistically complex, and suffers from significant barriers to realism and accessibility - trainees must be physically co-located around a limited physical manikin simulator in a single location. Replication of the psychoenvironmental factors surrounding any medical circumstance further requires introducing physical environmental manipulation, significantly increasing the logistical complexity of "full fidelity" simulation. The Virtual Advancement of Learning for Operational Readiness (VALOR) program, a research collaboration between the US Air Force Special Operations Command, AFVentures, and SimX, Inc., aims to disrupt these barriers through the development of novel virtual simulation capabilities for Federal and civilian markets which allow enhanced realism, reduced logistical complexity, and significantly reduced cost, with the overall goal of making high quality medical simulation training ubiquitous. The Virtual Reality Medical Simulation System (VRMSS) platform developed by VALOR focuses on medical fidelity, extensibility and repeatability. Location agnosticism is a key tenet of VRMSS design: trainees have the same team-based training experience whether they are physically co-located or distributed, without the need for special measures. This is accomplished through automated virtual telepresence; learning takes place within a seamless virtual domain with location-based real-time audio passthrough creating the simulated appearance of physical colocation. Currently, the VALOR program is working to enhance the VRMSS distributed capability to provide "handoff" simulation, in which multiple virtual groups of (location-agnostic) learners practice in multiple virtual domains with seamless handoffs between domains in order to enable end-to-end medical mission training across roles of care. This new capability will "close the loop" and enable distributed components of the care continuum to train together, without requiring logistically complex travel and co-location, enabling better training at lower cost.
@inproceedings{Sarma2022ifest,
author = {Sarma, K. V. and Dorsch, J. R. and Ribeira, J. R. and Weiss, T. L. and Polson, J. S. and Andre, T. and Barrie, M. and Ribeira, R. J.},
booktitle = {iFEST},
title = {{Distributed, Fully-Immersive VR Medical Simulation Training for Team-Based Care}},
year = {2022},
}