HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Business leaders are always looking for faster, more effective and cheaper ways to help their customers.
That was the driving force for one Huntsville-based defense contractor when it designed a digital training tool for the military, only to realize the blueprint for learning how to operate a missile system could be applied to medicine.
The result?
A mixed-reality tutorial that’s transforming how the entire Huntsville Hospital System trains newly-hired nurses.
A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense or a THAAD missile unit is massive and costs up to two billion dollars, not counting the cost of training the soldiers to operate it.
So, Torch Technologies in Huntsville developed a fast, cost-effective, and intrinsically basic training tool using virtual reality.
A gaming system with off-the-shelf headsets and life-like software creating THADD’s digital twin.
Torch then moved this 3D VR training tool from the battlefield to the healthcare field and calls the company and software, Simvana.
First, targeting and training nurse anesthetists, simulating the procedure without putting real patients at risk.
“It’s a cheap way to train people all over the world, no matter where you’re at,” said Darryl Trousdale, Program Manager of the Advanced Visual Lab at Torch Technologies.
And now, the entire Huntsville Hospital System sends all its newly-hired nurses and techs to Simvana “boot camp”.
They slip on a headset and step right inside a hospital room before they ever meet a real patient.
“This is a much more engaging way to learn. I can take my time with it,” said Huntsville Hospital Director of Clinical Nursing Practice Alexis Spaulding. “It’s very different than anything we’ve seen anywhere else. and it translates to real-world scenarios.”
Spaulding said it beats lecturing and is a practical approach to mass orientation plus it’s much cheaper.
A real hospital bed needed for training costs $13,000, a bladder scanner $11,000.
“Versus in the VR environment, that headset is about $700. So we can buy many, many headsets instead of just one bladder scanner,” said Spaulding.
And it’s a paradigm shift for struggling rural hospitals, limited by time and trainers.
“We at this point have delivered around 10 different scenarios, which are training nurses on patient safety, room safety, and even taking AI and integrating that now to where we are focused on combative patients and suicide prevention,” Simvana Program Director Nathan Faught said.
Which ER nurse, LP Parker says, will be a game changer.
“It’s not a matter of if but when you’re going to come across these things,” said Parker. “It would be nice to have some training ahead of time to set you up for success.”
Those on the ER’s Trauma side can’t wait for Simvana’s upcoming team training.
Anything to anticipate the organized chaos.
“You have a lot of people in the room and a lot of things going on, and there’s got to be perfect communication,” said Kevin Paschal, Huntsville Hospital Trauma Program Manager. “Absolutely. You kind of have to be able to read each other’s minds.”
“And to be able to do that and train in that without a real patient will give us the ability to take our care to the next level,” said Paschal.
Simvana is not only in the Huntsville Hospital System, but company leaders hope to soon design courses for Alabama nursing schools.
An answer to the real-world challenges in training using almost-real solutions.
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