LOS ANGELES & CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GigXR, Inc., a global provider of holographic healthcare training, announced today the release of a new mixed reality application called HoloScenarios. The first module, created in partnership with the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust, will provide hyper-realistic holographic scenarios for common respiratory conditions and emergencies.
HoloScenarios simulates the entire patient care journey with lifelike realism, from assessment and diagnosis to appropriate intervention and escalation of care. Instructors can place holographic patients and medical equipment into any training environment for users to see both their real-world physical space and the digital overlay of the holograms at same time, whether in a simulation lab, classroom or at-home study or office space for distributed learning. This provides true-to-life and safe-to-fail immersive learning that can be accessed, delivered and shared with learners anywhere in the world.
“Mixed reality is increasingly recognized as a useful method of simulator training. As institutions scale procurement, the demand for platforms that offer utility and ease of mixed reality learning management is rapidly expanding,” said Arun Gupta, Director of Postgraduate Education, Cambridge University Health Partnership. “GigXR has already enabled instructors to better prepare learners with medically accurate simulation for observation and assessment. With HoloScenarios, we’re helping to evolve education from a mentorship-based model to one where students around the world can have equal access to top-flight expertise for mastering invention-based clinical skills.”
Delivered by the Gig Immersive Learning Platform, HoloScenarios centralizes and streamlines access to mixed reality learning, and will includes asthma, anaphylaxis, pulmonary embolism and pneumonia scenarios, the development of which have been informed by subject matter experts at University of Cambridge and doctors at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust.
“Partnering with GigXR allows us to create robust training without the heavy resource demands of traditional simulation, which can make immersive training financially prohibitive due to costs for maintaining simulation centers, their equipment and the faculty and staff hours to operate the labs and hire and train patient actors,” said Mary Archibald, Director of Operations, Surgical Training Centre, Medical Education Manager, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust.
“The NHS has always been at the forefront of medical innovation,” added Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS National Medical Director. “This unique development by teams in Cambridge – to use life-like holographic patients in medical training – could enhance the learning experience of our next generation of doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, by creating new environments to practice medicine in real time, while improving access to training worldwide.”
HoloScenarios, and its first set of scenarios for respiratory conditions, is the newest addition to the Gig Immersive Learning Platform’s rapidly expanding catalog of mixed reality applications. Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Neurology scenarios are currently in development with GigXR partners Northwest Permanente P.C. and Michigan Medicine, and will be available soon.
“Empowering instructors with 360-degree preparation for clinical practice represents a milestone for GigXR that allows us to provide our customers with a library of applications that offers solutions for students from their first courses to continuing education,” said David King Lassman, GigXR Founder. “Our first HoloScenarios module represents a new and incredibly powerful way to use mixed reality for healthcare training to be followed up by many more modules and new applications delivered soon.”
The Gig Immersive Learning Platform allows instructors to adjust the level of difficulty for each scenario to meet individual training requirements or environments. For example, if a patient with asthma is given the correct medication, learners can see a marked improvement in the patient’s condition as the intervention takes effect, or they can see a deterioration in the patient’s condition if no intervention is given or they choose an incorrect treatment. Scenarios within the respiratory module include:
- Asthma – Practice in the diagnosis and management of severe acute asthma. This will give trainees experience in managing acute asthma as it progresses in severity.
- Anaphylaxis – Practice in the prompt recognition and management of a severe allergic reaction to a medication.
- Pulmonary Embolism – Practice in identifying and treating a complex and often difficult to diagnose condition.
- Pneumonia – Practice in the management of a severe pneumonia. Rehearse the investigations and management needed when treating a septic patient.
The University of Cambridge has also initiated research in tandem with the ongoing development and release of more scenarios and modules for HoloScenarios. The research is exploring benchmarks and criteria for evaluating learner and patient outcomes using mixed reality, as well as evaluating the products and resulting efficiencies for the institution.
“Our research is aimed at uncovering the data to support and accelerate mass market adoption of mixed reality training while informing ongoing development,” said Riikka Hofmann, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. “We hope that it will help guide institutions in implementing mixed reality into their curricula, in the same way institutions evaluate conventional resources, such as textbooks, manikins, models or computer software, and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes.”
GigXR has been scaling access to mixed reality training since its 2019 debut. Today, customers across four continents–from nursing and medical schools, healthcare systems, teaching hospitals, government agencies and defense agencies–use the Gig Immersive learning Platform to seamlessly centralized mixed reality teaching that requires minimal staff and faculty training.
“Mixed reality is an excellent way to train. It’s incredibly intuitive. We’ve put customers in apps like HoloScenarios and they ‘just go’ – the experience is instinctual because you simply use your hands and the holograms superimpose over the real world in a way where they look like the real devices, patients or anatomical structures,” said Jared Mermey, CEO at GigXR. “So our goal is simple: make it easier to create, deliver, and implement more high-quality mixed reality across the spectrum of healthcare teaching and training.”
HoloScenarios’ first respiratory module is available for purchase starting today with implementation starting this Fall. Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Neurology modules will be available starting later this year. For more information on the Gig Immersive Learning Platform, visit www.gigxr.com. To demo HoloScenarios, email sales@gigxr.com.
About GigXR
GigXR is a global provider of eXtended Reality (XR) training solutions for medical and nursing schools, hospitals and higher education and the Department of Defense. GigXR’s Immersive Learning Platform delivers a rapidly growing catalog of hyper-realistic mixed reality training applications created in partnership with world-class medical education experts at institutions such as the University of Cambridge, Michigan Medicine and Northwest Permanente P.C. The applications are designed to break through the limitations of conventional 2D learning resources, by placing true-to-life 3D simulations and medical tools in a physical space using mixed reality headsets and mobile devices.
GigXR’s flagship products, HoloPatient and HoloHuman, create safe-to-fail environments in which medical and nursing students can practice vital diagnostic, communication and clinical reasoning skills. GigXR is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, with global customers on five continents. To learn more about GigXR visit www.gigxr.com.
About Cambridge University Hospitals
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) is one of the largest and best known trusts in the country, delivering high-quality patient care through Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie Hospitals. CUH is a leading national center for specialist treatment for rare or complex conditions and a university teaching hospital with a worldwide reputation.
CUH is a key partner in Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP), one of only six academic health science centers in the UK, and is at the heart of the development of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), which brings together on one site world-class biomedical research, patient care and education. As part of the Campus development, Papworth Hospital has created a bespoke, purpose-built hospital, and AstraZeneca has established a new global R&D center and corporate headquarters. The Campus is one of the Government’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) comprehensive biomedical research centers.
More about Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) visit: http://www.cuh.org.uk/.
