New report points way on use of VR in healthcare training

A new report that could help improve how immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality – VR – are used in healthcare training and education has been published with significant input from the University of Huddersfield.

Professor David Peebles, Director of the University’s Centre for Cognition and Neuroscience, and Huddersfield PhD graduate Matthew Pears contributed to the report – ‘Immersive technologies in healthcare training and education: Three principles for progress’ – recently published by the University of Leeds alongside input from range of academics, technologist and health professionals.

The principles have also been expanded upon in a letter to the prestigious journal BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning.

The report is a culmination of several years of work, which also involved another former Huddersfield PhD researcher, Yeshwanth Pulijala, and Professor Eunice Ma, now with Falmouth University.

“Yeshwanth had an interest in technology and education, and in using VR with dentistry. Matthew was looking at soft skills and situation awareness, which could be applied to seeing how dentists were with what was going on around them. They were similar subjects, with significant differences, however it seemed a natural area for collaboration.”

India visit reaps dividends

With only a small number of dental schools in the UK, the quartet visited seven dental schools in India in early 2017 where they tested VR equipment on students with support from travel grants from Santander Bank. The experience gained from that visit contributed to both researchers’ PhDs, and ultimately led to the involvement of Professor Peebles and Matthew Pears in the new report.

Its findings push for a standardisation of how to use VR in healthcare training and education, as Professor Peebles explains, “It’s about developing a set of principles and guidelines about how to use immersive technology in medical treatment. A lot of people are doing it, technology is advancing and there is some value to it.

“Obviously it could be very beneficial, but it can be time-consuming. The general consensus is that using immersive technology is a bit haphazard. The principles identified in the report show it can be very technology driven.

“The attitude is ‘we have a great bit of VR or augmented reality kit, what do we do with it?’ We should be looking at the problem that needs solving – what are the learning needs, so how do we use technology to solve it?

“What’s needed is appropriate and adequate evaluation, but that can be difficult as there are relatively few people who use it. Getting surgeons to take time out to use VR is problematic.”

However, Matthew found a surgeon in Glasgow who was receptive to the issue and was granted permission to film in surgery, gathering footage and information that could be transformed into a 3D environment that can help give awareness of what is going on around while also working on a patient.

Pooling resources will be crucial

Professor Peebles hopes the work so far will provide a basis for more investigations that could help get the most from the potential that VR and immersive technology have to offer.

“It’s easy to do these kinds of studies, but not get the appropriate levels of data or analysis that allows you to properly evaluate them. A questionnaire won’t give you quantitative data for a rigorous examination.

“More collaboration is required -it is about pooling technological and intellectual resources, to try to develop a set of standards and a community that works together to boost research in this area.”