How Catharina Hospital Brings VR to the ICU

Introduction:

Catharina Hospital is a large city hospital with approximately 4,500 employees, known for its highly specialized care, particularly in cardiovascular and cancer treatments, alongside providing essential basic care. Committed to delivering top-tier clinical care, Catharina Hospital sought innovative solutions to enhance staff training and preparedness — with a particular focus onbringing simulation-based learning directly to the workplace.

The Challenge - Bridging the Gap in Critical Care Training:

Catharina Hospital faced several key challenges in providing effective and timely training for its staff, particularly in behavioral or social skills. Traditional training methods presented limitations in:

• Replicating High-Stress Situations: Certain critical events, such as the need for arterial blood sampling in the ICU, are infrequent but require swift and precise action. Traditional training struggled to recreate the time-sensitive and high-stakes environment effectively.
• Balancing Training with Workload: Busy healthcare professionals, especially nurses, often found it challenging to attend off-site or lengthy physical training sessions. This made on-the-job learning essential.
• Limited Practice Opportunities: For procedures like arterial blood sampling, there were limited opportunities for hands-on practice. Relying on real patients for practice was neither ethical nor optimal for learning.

Essentially, obtaining a certification in arterial blood sampling was difficult because the procedure rarely occurs. However, when there is a need, it is urgent that it is addressed quickly. This created a situation where in-person training was not reasonable, but the hospital still wanted to maintain a true-to-life training experience and emphasize the theoretical knowledge required through a VR experience.

The Warp VR Solution - Immersive, Realistic, and Accessible Training:

Catharina Hospital explored various solutions, but ultimately chose Warp VR for its superior user-friendliness and, most importantly, its truly immersive nature. The hospital found that other solutions, being primarily 3D, lacked the sense of presence and realism necessary for effective training. As one staff member noted, "At this moment 3D is a bit of a gimmick because it isn't actually immersive."

Warp VR's 360-degree immersive virtual reality scenarios offered several key advantages:

• True Immersiveness: Warp VR allowed staff to experience realistic settings, including familiar rooms and colleagues, creating a personal and engaging learning environment.
• Safe Practice Environment: VR provides a safe space for staff to make mistakes, observe the consequences of their actions, and learn from them without any risk to patients. In some cases, trainers even encouraged deliberate errors to facilitate learning.
• Visual Learning: Catharina Hospital recognized the effectiveness of visual learning, particularly for nurses, and Warp VR's immersive scenarios catered to this preference.
• Flexibility and Accessibility: Warp VR enabled on-the-job learning, allowing staff to complete training during less busy periods or night shifts, eliminating the need for time-consuming off-site training.

Demonstrable Impact and Enthusiastic Adoption:

The implementation of Warp VR at Catharina Hospital has been met with enthusiastic adoption from staff, with initial feedback — particularly from the ICU — being overwhelmingly positive:

• Ease of Use and Rapid Adoption: Nurses were able to use the arterial blood sampling scenario without any prior introduction or explanation, demonstrating the platform's intuitive design.
• Positive Feedback from Critical Staff: ICU nurses were particularly enthusiastic about the VR training. Their positive feedback validated the effectiveness of the solution. As one ICU nurse and instructor noted, "The fact that they are enthusiastic about the training means it must be good."
• Addressing a Critical Training Gap: The VR training effectively addressed the challenge of providing regular practice for infrequent but critical procedures like arterial blood sampling. Again, the problem is that this situation "didn’t happen that often," and nurses needed recertification every two years, but physical simulations and patient availability were limited.

Looking Ahead - Expanding the Scope of VR Training:

Catharina Hospital is planning to expand its VR training program to cover a wider range of scenarios and roles. The next planned scenario has to do with fire escape and then dealing with aggression within the hospital. Driven by the potential of virtual reality in healthcare, we are committed to expanding its adoption within our hospital and fostering a culture of collaboration and knowledge-sharing with other institutions to accelerate innovation together.

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