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Monthly Archives: January 2020

//January

AVT Simulation Wins Construction Equipment Trainer Contract

AVT Simulation in Orlando, Florida, was awarded a $31 million firm-fixed-price contract to design, develop, integrate, manage, deliver, install, test, document and support construction equipment virtual trainers. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date in January 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity. The Construction Equipment Virtual Trainer (CEVT) is to both train soldiers upon initial entry and transition from the classroom to actual equipment by proving a null risk training environment. CEVT shall provide realistic and challenging training using simulated terrain and movement characteristics that enable the student to transfer motor-skills from simulator to construction equipment. CEVT allows soldiers to perform construction tasks that vary from leveling earth to excavating a trench and from constructing a stockpile to loading a hauling unit. The proposed contract will allow the Army to procure, install, and maintain motion-based simulators for five types of construction equipment: Motor Grader 120M, Scraper 621G, Dozer D7R, Wheel Loader 924H, and Excavator 2040. Kevin Vizzarri, Vice President of Business Development at AVT Simulation, said: “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to provide Army Engineers with a training solution that will increase their readiness. We [...]

By | 2020-01-31T15:46:03+00:00 January 31st, 2020|
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FDA to Host Workshop on AR/VR in Medicine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will host a public workshop on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in medicine on March 5, 2020, at the FDA White Oak Campus in Silver Springs, Maryland. The workshop, entitled "Medical Extended Reality: Toward Best Evaluation Practices for Virtual and Augmented Reality in Medicine” aims to discuss evaluation techniques for hardware, standards development, and assessment challenges for applications of Extended Reality (XR) in medicine. The goal is to identify critical gaps that may impede medical XR device development, innovation, and to advance the evaluation of medical XR devices and applications, thus accelerating the development of safe and effective medical XR devices, benefiting patients and healthcare. The meeting will be webcasted live and the archived link will be posted on the FDA website for viewing after the workshop.

By | 2020-01-29T18:01:12+00:00 January 29th, 2020|
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HCA Houston Healthcare Unveils First Mobile Training Ambulance

Officials with HCA Houston Healthcare unveiled Houston’s newest air ambulance service and the city’s first advanced mobile training ambulance and patient simulator, two new programs designed to enhance high-level adult and pediatric trauma care. HCA Houston Healthcare’s new AIRLife helicopters will operate 24/7, staffed with highly trained flight nurses, paramedics and skilled pilots. The first AIRLife helicopter will be based at The Woman’s Hospital of Texas.  A second helicopter will be based at HCA Houston Healthcare Conroe. Both will have a range of approximately 120 miles and will respond to assist at 911 calls as well as transfer adult and pediatric patients from other hospitals in need of a higher level of care. The new helicopters feature expanded cabin space and an increased maximum takeoff weight, according to Allen Sims, EMS executive at HCA Houston Healthcare. Marty Delaney, HCA Houston Healthcare’s vice president of medical transport, will manage the AIRLife helicopters and ground ambulances. The second EMS program, HCA Houston Healthcare’s mobile simulation ambulance, is a dynamic, next-generation EMS training center and portable classroom on wheels. The “simbulance” will be equipped with adult, child and infant mannequins capable of simulating a wide variety of trauma and medical emergencies, including airway [...]

By | 2020-01-27T20:34:58+00:00 January 27th, 2020|
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State Releases $10.5M for SIUE Health Sciences Building

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced the release of $10.5 million in planning funds to create preliminary designs for a Health Science Building (HSB) on the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) campus. Pritzker made the announcement in the Morris University Center’s Meridian Ballroom. The complex will include approximately 221,000 square feet. The project’s total cost is approximately $105 million. It would be the largest building on the SIUE campus. SIUE operates a School of Pharmacy (SOP), a School of Nursing (SON), a School of Dental Medicine (SDM) in Alton, and related health sciences programs in various disciplines to serve central and southern Illinois. The University has seen broad expansion of the health sciences program in the Department of Applied Health, including exercise science, kinesiology, nutrition and dietetics, public health, and speech-language pathology and audiology. “This new Health Science Building is an incredibly exciting step forward and will allow SIUE and the SIU System to expand its leadership in health science education in southern Illinois and beyond,” said SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook. “Specifically, the additional space will facilitate more simulation training, research, and allow growth in programs within nursing, pharmacy and related health science areas. In short, it will improve the overall [...]

By | 2020-01-24T20:07:58+00:00 January 24th, 2020|
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Area9 AI platform being used to train healthcare staff in Tanzania

A pilot project to support district hospitals in the Mwanza Region of Tanzania is using the Area9 Rhapsode adaptive AI learning platform. The project is part of the Helping Children Survive (HCS) collaborative, led by Dr. Peter Meaney. It seeks to improve the care of seriously ill children through innovative healthcare worker training. Area9 Group say its AI-based platform, built on 20 years of research into human factors and cognition, "delivers truly personalized learning at scale – cutting training time in half, guaranteeing proficiency and making lasting impacts on careers and business outcomes." “Adaptive learning may be the ideal e-health strategy to increase the efficacy of healthcare worker training,” said Meaney. Dr. Marc Berg, Chief Clinical Advisor and Medical Director of Area9 Group, has joined with Meaney in developing training for healthcare workers in Tanzania, using the Area9 Rhapsode platform. TANZANIA The HCS collaborative addresses one of today’s most urgent global problems, as defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being seeks to end suffering caused by preventable diseases and premature deaths. Goal 4: Quality Education affirms that education is a powerful and proven way to support sustainable development. There is a natural connection between education and healthcare. [...]

By | 2020-01-24T12:54:14+00:00 January 24th, 2020|
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President Clinton to Keynote Patient Safety Summit

President Clinton will return for the 8th year in the row as a Keynote Speaker for the World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit on Saturday, March 7, 2020. President Bill Clinton. Image credit: Patient Safety Movement Foundation. The 2020 World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit will be co-convened by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, European Society of Anaesthesiology and the International Society for Quality in Health Care held March 5-7, 2020 in Huntington Beach, California. The summit will bring international hospital leaders, medical and information technology companies, the patient advocacy community, public policy makers and government officials, together to discuss solutions to the leading challenges that cause preventable patient deaths in hospitals across the world.

By | 2020-01-23T22:10:57+00:00 January 23rd, 2020|
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Kitware Releases Latest Versions of Medical Simulation Tools

Kitware has released the latest versions of two of its popular medical training and simulation toolkits –  the Interactive Medical Simulation Toolkit (iMSTK) 2.0 and the Pulse Physiology Engine (Pulse) 2.3. Updates to these toolkits include improved models and functionality based on feedback from user and developer communities. Kitware showcased these latest features and improvements at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) in San Diego. Both iMSTK and Pulse provide the technology to build virtual simulators that can help practicing surgeons, medical students, residents, and nurses to rehearse or plan medical procedures. For example, iMSTK has been used to help medical professionals prepare for biopsies, resectioning, radiosurgery, and laparoscopy without compromising patient safety in the operating room. It can also help accredit potential surgeons in basic skills for laparoscopy, endoscopy or robotic surgery. Pulse provides necessary physiologic feedback for clinicians training to provide life-saving medical treatment, such as for hemorrhage, tension pneumothorax, airway trauma, ventilator use and settings, and anaphylaxis. iMSTK is a free, open source toolkit that offers product developers and researchers all the software components they need to build and test virtual simulators for medical training and planning. Release 2.0 offers improved functionality with many new [...]

By | 2020-01-23T19:26:30+00:00 January 23rd, 2020|
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Oxford Medical Simulation Launches Multiplayer VR Training

Oxford Medical Simulation has launched OMS Interprofessional, a multiplayer virtual reality (VR) simulation platform. OMS Interprofessional allows multiple learners to be in the same virtual reality scenario at one time, whether they are in the same room or different countries. Learners can collaborate, discuss and make decisions as a team, just like in real life, to improve patient care. Image credit: Oxford Medical Simulation Using VR headsets, learners are immersed in clinical environments with dynamic, engaging patients in true-to-life clinical scenarios where they can assess and treat patients in collaboration with their colleagues. Learners can see multiple patients, interview,  examine, investigate, and engage with their interdisciplinary team to treat their patient – who responds as in real life. The focus in OMS Interprofessional is on teamwork, communication, critical thinking and clinical reasoning – allowing clinicians to apply their knowledge and learn together. After each scenario learners enter a group debriefing environment, allowing them to analyse performance as a team, discussing the case and focusing on human factors just like in traditional simulation. Team performance analytics are also available to learners and faculty to facilitate debriefing, progress tracking and identify needs. Learners can enter the multiplayer environment with faculty [...]

By | 2020-01-21T21:49:27+00:00 January 21st, 2020|
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British farm safety group herd in VR

A British farm safety charity has been given £10,000 from the National Lottery fund to launch a VR training programme. The Farm Safety Foundation (FSF) has trained 10,000 agricultural students and young farmers at 41 different land-based colleges and universities throughout the UK since 2015. The funding boost will allow them to incorporate VR and AR into its training. "To deliver training that may actually save lives and limbs in the future makes it even more important," FSF said in a statement. "Imagine future farmers viewing a working farm and its real risks from all angles without leaving the classroom." British farming is one of the most dangerous industries to work in. A study by the BBC last year said that around  360,000 people work in agriculture, or 1% of the total workforce, yet the sector was liable for 20% of all fatal accidents at work. "For a generation raised on interactive technologies, we really believe that bringing VR into learning can help encourage active engagement and contribute to delivering our key farm safety messages," FSF added.  

By | 2020-01-21T16:18:01+00:00 January 21st, 2020|
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Touch Surgery secures $70m funding for VR doctor training

British start-up Touch Surgery, which uses VR headsets to train doctors, has secured $70m (£54m) in funding to grow its product line, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph. The British newspaper said the company, who had previously raised $19.5 million from U.S. venture capital fund 8VC, secured the money in October. It did not say where from. Touch Surgery did not respond to requests for comment from Halldale. Touch Surgery's main backers are in Silicon Valley. Surgeons Dr Jean Nehme and Dr Andre Chow set up the company in 2013. Its technology allows doctors to use headsets to study and review simulated operations. This means an experienced surgeon can help colleagues remotely and achieve best practice more widely. Its app, which has been downloaded 2.5 million, offers virtual tutorials of more than 160 procedures. It also provides a chance to test your expertise. In addition, the start-up provides video and data analysis systems for hospitals, working with the NHS. The Daily Telegraph said Touch were offering its services to U.K. and U.S. hospitals.  

By | 2020-01-21T10:32:39+00:00 January 21st, 2020|
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