$1.25 Million Grant Awarded for VR Medical Training

SimX has been selected by AFWERX for a Phase II STTR in the amount of $1.25 million focused on building adaptations to SimX's Virtual Reality Medical Simulation System (VRMSS) to support perioperative expeditionary medical support training for surgical teams and address the most pressing challenges in the Department of the Air Force (DAF).

The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. The DAF began offering the Open Topic SBIR/STTR program in 2018, which expanded the range of innovations the DAF funded and since 24 July 2024, SimX started its journey to create and provide capabilities that will strengthen the national defense of the United States of America.

Through this grant, SimX is collaborating with simulation training experts at the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) at the University of South Florida. The CAMLS team aims to help remove the traditional barriers that health care providers encounter by bringing specialized medical training directly to them using an immersive experience of modern VR technology, combined with the benefits of traditional teaching methods, including personalized instruction and expert mentorship feedback. This blend aims to elevate the standard of health care training, making it more accessible and effective for professionals in remote areas, including military personnel in remote areas of the world.

"Our team is well poised to support this project," said Alan Todd, DNP, CRNA, CHSE, FAANA, associate professor in the Department of Medical Education at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, Military Healthcare Simulation and Training researcher at USF Health CAMLS, and principal investigator for the SimX project. "We have faculty colleagues with past military experience, simulation curriculum design expertise, and research expertise related to VR technologies. Tapping into this immersive technology, which has proven to be very effective in providing specialized medical training, will allow our team to train and support health care professionals participating simultaneously from anywhere, whether on base or in the field."