"We combine the world of virtual reality and healthcare"
Care education and training is facing major challenges. In view of the shortage of skilled workers and the increasing demands on trainees, innovative approaches are needed in teaching. The use of virtual reality offers numerous promising opportunities for this. For teachers, this means taking a close look at the technology, its possible applications and the challenges it poses. However, students and trainees should also be closely involved in the process in order to test the VR applications and provide valuable feedback.
The German project partners Strategische Partnerschaft Sensorik e.V. and OTH Regensburg are therefore meeting with both teaching staff and students, developing ideas for application scenarios in workshops, discussing the necessary technical framework conditions and developing detailed didactic concepts and lesson plans.
At the OTH Regensburg you can study care sciences. It therefore stands to reason that tests and feedback cycles were carried out there, in this specific case with Bachelor students in their fifth semester. For the pre-test, they chose an anatomy application available on Steam due to its simple, fast and inexpensive features. Care scenarios tested included endotracheal suctioning of a patient and subcutaneous injection in a diabetic patient. The aim was to evaluate as many different technical implementation ideas as possible. The feedback was largely positive. The students praised the practical implementation of the anatomy applications, while the care applications were rated differently depending on the technical implementation in VR. Intuitive operation, sufficient practice time, pedagogical support and handy hardware helped the students to quickly find their way around. Challenges were posed by the lack of hand tracking and the different handling in almost every application.
Many students showed great interest and creativity in the exchange of ideas. They saw great potential in the areas of teaching and care as well as in the entire medical and healthcare sector. VR is seen as an important future tool that can enrich practice and people in need of care. The students named the skills required by teachers who want to use this medium and emphasized the necessary technical expertise. The different levels of curiosity and technical skills of the students stood out positively.
In view of the major challenges in care education, including the shortage of specialists and the growing demands on staff, the introduction of new digital teaching and learning methods is of crucial importance. One focus of the VReduMED project is now on creating a train-the-trainer concept for care educators and practice instructors. The aim is to give them a basic understanding of the technology used and how to use it, as well as specific recommendations for the implementation of VR as a digital teaching and learning method.
