Precision OS obtains Canadian training accreditation

Precision OS has earned accreditation from aprofessional development provider of the Royal College of Physicians andSurgeons in Canada. The program accreditation comes shortly after the companypartnered with 10 North American universities and medical institutions tolaunch a virtual reality (VR) orthopedic surgery training program.

Gaining Royal College’s accreditation allows theprogram to be used as part of continuing medical education (CME) for surgeons,who are required to take so many CME credits throughout their careers. CMEsconsist of three primary parts: group learning, individual learning andperformance appraisal. The program now satisfies the performance appraisalrequirement by offering surgeons an immersive training experience without anyrisk of harming patients.

In a statement, Precision Founder and Chief Executive officer, Dr. Danny Goel, said: “Accreditation for Precision means that an independent national organization has reviewed our simulation and deemed it to be appropriate for a high level of education consistent with a formal evaluation of surgeon performance. More importantly, it speaks to the quality of education that we provide where a highly regarded organization like the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada will provide section 3 credits for users of this particular simulation model.”

Last year, Precision’s VR training platformreceived $2.3-million in Series A funding led by the internationalorganization, AO Invest, to the end of creating “a virtual language able to adddepth of understanding that simply cannot be achieved using current simulationtools,” according to Goel. Today, the training platform includes a number of VRscenarios that aren’t limited to a single type of procedure or practice.

As with any virtual reality program, userexperience (UX) is important. Precision has made UX a top concern by seekingfeedback from hundreds of practitioners who have tested and used the programover two years of development. This has allowed the company to make changes, asnecessary, to meet the demands of exceptional training that provides areal-time appraisal. In a recent statement, Goel says, “We have iteratedimmensely and have focused on what our users want to see and not see. This hasbeen the greatest benefit to receiving feedback. Naturally, the initialreaction of virtual reality is always positive, but getting past the excitementof this new technology is where the answer really rests.”

Putting feedback at the center of theorganization has allowed Precision to remain agile enough to make changes tothe program, quickly, as needed. Goel states, “Our product today is differentthan yesterday, which is the foundation of why feedback is so critical to ourorganization.” With so much hanging in the balance for the future of VR inmedicine, Precision’s leadership agrees it’s critically important to produceesteemed, high-quality training content because a single wrong move could havedevastating consequences for the future of VR in the industry.

Goel states that his commitment to using feedbackwill mean big changes for the future. In a statement, he said, “We want tolearn as much today as we did two years ago about our content. The absence ofprogression would be a great failure given how advanced the technology hasbecome. Several enhancements will occur as we build more and more content,including performance metrics and evaluation. Several aspects come to mind butthe most important is whether we truly are preparing surgeons for their future?Every patient is unique so the skills we confer onto the trainees is ofparamount importance.”