Have you been following along with our social media? We have some exciting news about our work with Tucson Medical Center!
We partnered with TMC to create a training program for nurses, patient care technicians, and environmental services staff to address both work responsibilities and high-risk, problematic tasks in a health care setting, and the pilot is underway. This new training is part of a TMC Foundation-funded program that includes a research study that aims to enroll more than 200 RN participants and nearly 800 environmental and primary care technicians.
“Like other simulation education, VR has the ability to offer a safe space for the practice of significant skills for numerous health care workers,” said Dr. Anissa Guzman, TMC director of Professional Practice. “Mistakes can be made without real consequences to patients, which allows for modification of practices that fall outside of expectations for safe, high-quality patient care. Repeated opportunities to work through the proper steps or processes for high-risk events provide a great opportunity for performance improvement in a virtual space that can be translated to real practice in the health care setting.”
[https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/tmc-launches-a-new-virtual-reality-training-platform]
The purpose of the study is to measure nurse confidence and competence in specific clinical skills through the use of virtual reality training modules. The application of VR contributes to the efficient use of education and human resources. By creating digital twins of existing hospital rooms, this project simulates the exact environment and potential patients that nurses encounter. This level of immersion creates a familiar experience for the students and allows them to orient and apply their lessons quickly in physical reality.
As soon as you put on those goggles, Cam Dyman, Clinical Informatics Training lead, said it feels like you’re really in a hospital, taking care of patients, something that will be huge when it comes to training nurses during this pandemic.
She said a lack of space and resources had made that task hard over the past few years.
“To be able to do it in this environment, a safe environment too where they can practice and make mistakes is essential. To be able to do it with a lot of resources. Hospitals are also running out of space. We don’t have a lot of places to train people so all of those things make it cost-effective, fast, and fun,” Dyman said.
The nearly 1,000 people receiving this training will learn how to quickly and efficiently turn over hospital rooms in order to reduce the risk of c. diff infection through sanitation routines, as well as making rooms safe to prevent falls or attempted suicides.
You can read and watch more at these links!
[https://www.tmcaz.com/blogs/newsroom/campus-news/tmc-pilots-new-virtual-reality-training-platform]
