Newcastle Hospital adopts Osso VR to train surgeons

Osso VR is expanding into the European market afterNewcastle Hospital’s Simulation Centre has begun using its technology toprepare surgeons for difficult procedures.

The European healthcare market is facing growing challengestraining new surgeons. According to a report from the Royal College ofSurgeons, surgical trainees were focused more on service tasks, such asadministrative work, instead of participating in patient care. Additionally,changing dynamics within training have resulted in less hands-on experiencesmoving them to later in the training process. Due to these challenges and therapid availability of new technology, even practiced surgeons are finding itdifficult to keep up.

“Newcastle Hospital has the widest adoption of robotic andminimally invasive surgery in the U.K.,” said Naeem Soomro, director of roboticsurgery at Newcastle Hospital. “At Newcastle Surgical Training Centre, wedeliver around 300 surgical courses each year and believe that VR/AR along withrealistic simulation will become a significant component of surgical trainingin the future and are very pleased to partner with Osso VR.”

Osso VR has seen success across the U.S. in residencyprograms looking to increase access to hands-on training and assessmentopportunities for surgical trainees. The company has also attracted orthopedicmedical device companies to use the platform to improve training, encouragesafe use, and increase adoption of their devices. In scientifically validatingthe platform, preliminary study results have shown the Osso VR-trained groupperformed 230 percent better than the control group, trained traditionally, asmeasured by the Global Rating Scale.

“Surgical skill is directly correlated with patientoutcomes, yet we don’t currently measure the proficiency of our surgical careproviders. Ideally we can identify improvement areas and then intervene withtargeted simulation in order to provide higher quality and standardized carearound the globe,” said Justin Barad, MD and CEO/co-founder of Osso VR.“Immersive technologies like VR have the proven ability to address the challengespresented by the current the accelerating pace of innovation. We are thrilledto be working globally with more hospitals and device companies that understandthat the biggest problem we’re facing today is not what we are doing for ourpatients, but how we are doing it.”

“We see VR as an integral cog in the development andmaintenance of surgical skills acquisition in health care education,” said PaulFearon, training programme director in orthopaedics at Newcastle Hospital. “Itinterfaces with high fidelity simulation, allowing team-based learning with theultimate goal of improving patient safety.”

Osso VR augments the apprenticeship training model thesurgical education system has relied on for over a century, and addresses theshortcomings presented by traditional one-to-two day workshops for medicaldevice companies. One way Osso VR does this is by objectively allowing multiplesurgeons to train together in one VR space independent of their physicallocation. Collaborative training affords improved learning and assessmentopportunities for surgeons and the surgical team, as well as gives medicaldevice companies more scalable way to offer workshops and trainingsessions.

Osso VR also allows for surgical proficiency to finally beeasily and objectively measured. Currently, assessment of surgical performanceis rarely performed and, when it is, is quite subjective. Analytics and dataprovided on each surgeon allows users to identify improvement opportunities andsee how they are doing in relation to their peers.