There were about 90 first year medical students gathered in the lab. The instructor was about to walk them through their first dissection in a human anatomy course. For most of the students, it was the first time they had seen a medical procedure up close.
Traditionally, this class will be taught live and in person. A smaller number of students crowded around the operating table and peered over their instructor’s shoulder.
Some would have a good view while others would not. When the session ended, that was the end. Students could not go back and review the class again. Coordinating the lab, equipment and cadavers for such a class is done months in advance and requires significant planning.
However, this class would be different. The procedure was real, only filmed earlier with a 360-degree camera. There wasn’t just one camera, but several, each providing a different and intimate view of the proceedings. These captivating views make students feel as if they are in the operating room with their instructor.
To participate, students put on virtual reality (VR) goggles and choose the view that works best for them. They could “look around” the room, ask questions and generally interact instead of just being passive observers. If they wore VR gloves that use advanced haptics to provide a sense of touch, they could pick up tools and “feel” them.
The VR learning environment is rich and immersive. This gives each student a personalized and active experience to help shape them. Best of all, when the lecture is over, if students miss something or want to go over the material again, they can take the same class as many times as they want.
Beyond medical school – continuing education
It’s not just universities and medical students who are embracing VR technology for learning. I travel around the world to work with healthcare teams implementing VR, and I’ve noticed an increasing number of hospitals using it for continuing education:
- A highly specialized surgeon at a western US hospital is piloting ‘virtual tutors’ to teach other surgeons how to perform an innovative procedure that micro-sutures nerve endings – and restores sensation;
- A large teaching hospital in New York is using VR to teach residents hard and soft skills – at their convenience; and
- Hospitals in the US, Europe and Asia have developed realistic simulations that can certify providers to perform advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), peritoneal dialysis or even develop strategies to manage aggression in the emergency room. In fact, VR seems to have significant momentum in the healthcare community. A recent survey of healthcare professionals in the US found:
- 85% feel familiar with immersive learning tools;
- 64% say there is more interest in compelling technology today than three years ago; and
- 77% say their healthcare organization has implemented (34%) VR technology – or plans to (43%).
Despite the enthusiasm for VR in healthcare, the same survey found that the main barrier to adopting the technology is budget (46%). This is something I also hear anecdotally, and while it’s true that VR requires some initial budget to set up, it’s more cost-effective than conventional training methods in the long run.
Five ways to make a business case for VR in healthcare
A classic framework for building a business case for technology is cost reduction and avoidance. This is when a tool requires an investment to get started – but results in cost savings when adopted. In other words, sometimes you have to spend money to save money.
To that end, below are some of the business arguments we’ve seen vendors championing VR in their organizations use to make the case.
1. VR training reduces travel, venue, equipment and actor costs
Training is expensive in any industry and even more so in healthcare due to its nature. While travel costs are universal, healthcare training often involves a specialized location, such as a laboratory, equipment such as instruments and mannequins, and actors for training scenarios when using “standardized patients” to provide realistic training.
All these positions are expensive. For example, tactile dummies can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. VR eliminates or greatly reduces these costs once a simulation is created. Better VR platforms offer code-free tools that are easy to use and require no technical skills to operate.
2. VR training reduces the time needed to plan and implement training
There is a shortage of health workers, which means that most health facilities operate at high staff utilization. Burnout is widespread. A large urban teaching hospital cannot simply close and require its 80 anesthesiology residents to attend training.
It’s not easier for coaches either. Often, training sessions, especially the variety that replicate high-stress emergency scenarios, must be planned in advance and take time to execute.
VR will require the same level of effort to create the simulation – but once it’s done – planning is easy. Trainees can take the course at a time that best suits their needs. And it frees up instructors to spend time on higher-value tasks, such as improving course materials.
3. VR training provides reusable courses
One of the biggest advantages of VR simulations is content reuse. Once a simulation is created in VR, it can be experienced repeatedly, which provides learning through repetition. The economics are also clear: the more interns, trainees or students who take a VR course, the lower the cost of that training per student.
4. VR training improves clinical performance
VR provides a deeply immersive learning environment. Interns don’t just listen to a lecture – they have a chance to be active participants. Many healthcare professionals I’ve spoken to who have used VR for training purposes say it often is better than real life.
Studies show that immersive simulations allow learners to absorb new information faster and remember more of it. In the aforementioned study, respondents said that VR improved clinical performance.
This is not an isolated finding. A peer-reviewed article that examined 11 studies on the use of VR in healthcare concluded that “Nine of eleven studies based on medical education showed positive results in terms of knowledge, skills, confidence and empathy. Additionally, VR is emerging as a promising tool for clinical patient care.”
5. VR training can be a source of revenue for healthcare
Several enterprising doctors I’ve worked with are considering VR as a potential source of income. For example, the surgeon mentioned above is considering how he can turn his virtual teaching into a premium virtual course.
In addition, she holds a leadership position in her hospital and is responsible for healthcare innovation. This could lead to similar courses being developed and offered by other professionals through a premium virtual ‘library’ of procedures.
Vendors talk about VR in their own words
One final point in building a business case for anything new or emerging is to keep an open mind. To this end, the final survey question mentioned earlier asked respondents the following question: “If you could make one recommendation to your management regarding the use of immersive technologies, what would you say?”
More than 80 respondents write in open comments. “This will cut my training time to an extremely low level. May repeat certain things or situations,” wrote one respondent. “It will help us attract new students and make us feel that they are ready after training,” said another. “It’s a cost-effective way to get things done and will save our organization a lot of money,” concluded a third.
Photo: exdez, Getty Images