When providing quality practical learning, numerous organisations face the challenge of providing students with modern equipment. Outdated instruments lack in preparation of students for real-time situations and pose a potential risk to someone’s life in the future.
A similar situation happened at The Simulation Centre of Ljubljana, the first healthcare simulation centre at the primary level to exist in Slovenia. The Simulation Centre was looking to improve the training regimen for those responding to cases of anaphylactic shock. A major pain point was the industry’s outdated approach, which used rubber mannequins that were too generic to produce an authentic experience. One of the problems was also mobility, since the trainings were only available at institutions that could afford it, targeted groups would often need to travel across the country to receive instruction.
OUR CASE
We partnered with the Simulation Centre of Ljubljana to help them develop the most suitable solution. Our main proposal was to develop a studying approach that could provide clinical simulation using mixed reality to mimic the environmental stresses involved in real life. It was also essential to make it accessible and independent of a particular location.
We developed an incredibly advanced medical simulation of anaphylactic shock. A complex scenario that can be seldom experienced in certain clinical environments, so repetitive, high quality and price efficient medical simulation are of utmost importance.
Through the AWAKE application, we were able to create the most life-like AR and MR simulations possible, with an extensive array of wanted and unwanted clinical outcomes for students to learn from. To ensure our simulations were medically credible we worked directly with leading instructors across multiple iterations of the solution.
In the AWAKE Mixed Reality Clinical environment trainees are surrounded by standardised medical equipment with an exhaustive clinical toolset which supports the widest range of possible interactions and vital sign measurements. Patients are fully animated and respond to the user's actions accordingly. Development of the symptoms is dynamic and follows the rules of the typical course of the medical problem.
These scenarios provide believable first-person experiences through which trainees learn appropriate clinical protocols for situations where their skill will matter in life-and-death situations.
“With AWAKE we can produce authentic environments and believable experiences in which candidates can test their knowledge almost as they could do in the real situation. This means that they get much better qualified to make life-saving decisions when this is the most important.”
— Uroš Zafošnik, Lead Instructor, Simulation Centre of Ljubljana
AWAKE ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK SUCCESS IN STATS
- Since implementing AWAKE in September 2018, the Simulation Centre of Ljubljana has trained over 1,033 candidates in the first year of usage.
- Hololens devices were used between 6-10 hours a day.
- The AWAKE solution has contributed to a drop in the time needed to conduct first-aid training from one hour per candidate to just over 12 minutes.
- The time needed to perform professional training for vitally endangered patients with anaphylactic shock has dropped from 5 hours per group to 1 hour.
- The latent security risks factor (LSR factor), has dropped from 14 cases in 60 groups examined in 2015 to 5 out of 60 groups reviewed in 2019. Of those who’ve used the AWAKE solution, 93.93 percent of 1,033 trainees have rated it as “excellent”.
BUILDING BLOCKS
The AWAKE platform is designed to focus primarily on enterprise medical usage, with enterprise-grade software building blocks, which improve efficiency and delivery time and industry-standard hardware – Hololens 1 and Hololens 2. Two medically tested augmented reality devices, with the capability to run on-device solutions and tightly integrated into Microsoft Azure cloud offering are enabling true capabilities of big data analytics.
At the time, the platform itself has proven to be the best solution for training and practising life-like situations on the market worldwide.
The AWAKE platform is more than just anaphylactic shock simulation. We are calling it a platform for a reason - it goes beyond just one application. There are several applications covering the demonstration and simulation of heart functions, illustrating the electrocardiogram process and building a digital twin of an emergency vehicle.
CONCLUSION AND REFERENCES
With the implementation of AWAKE, the Simulation Centre of Ljubljana has successfully enhanced the center's ability to offer quality medical training, with an emphasise on anaphylactic shock through MR simulations. The platform has made learning easier, faster and cost-efficient, introducing students to an interactive and modern way of acquiring knowledge and practising skills.
If you are interested in further information about AWAKE, feel free to explore additional resources:
AWAKE website: https://www.awake.health/
One of the AWAKE applications is available at the official Hololens application store: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/awake-ecg/9PF450J9K2SF
The Simulation Centre of Ljubljana: https://sim-center.si/
AWAKE was co-financed (1.073.532,41 €) by the Slovenian Ministry of Economic Development and Technology & the European Union, from the European Regional Development Fund (https://www.eu-skladi.si)
