GigXR Secures Investment and Partnership to Develop MR Simulation Training

GigXR has secured a strategic investment and partnership with a subsidiary of Northwest Permanente P.C., the largest physician-led, multispecialty group practice in Oregon and SW Washington, to develop Mixed Reality (MR) teaching and training simulations for both healthcare professionals and introductory learners starting with Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ALS). The subsidiary, Permanente Health Care Ventures, aka Sidney, will provide physician consulting to GigXR to create teaching and training simulations delivered through its XR solutions.

Today’s cardiac emergency training requires learners to use rubber, unrealistic static mannequins. The new training simulations co-created by Sidney and GigXR use MR, which merges real-world physical environments with hyper-realistic digital elements, to present learners with life-like talking and walking patient holograms “experiencing” cardiac arrest to interact with and practice real-time, life-saving treatment. Patient holograms can also be overlaid onto any mannequin to make practicing chest compressions or using a defibrillator even more life-like.

“Speed, accuracy and teamwork are critical to providing lifesaving care during a cardiac emergency; training has to be top-quality for every person involved, individually and as a group. Conventional methods such as expensive mannequins cannot simulate the sense of urgency and teamwork of real-life BLS/ACLS – mixed reality adds both an incredible level of realism and collaboration to close critical training gaps. By partnering with GigXR, we’re allowing learners to practice real-time emergency care in the metaverse just as they would as a healthcare professional in the hospital or even as a family member at home,” said Patricia Ramos, MD, MCRP, Medical Director, Center for Innovative Medical Simulation, and Senior Emergency Physician at NWP.

The partnership between Sidney and GigXR will drive development of acute care simulations to expand GigXR’s catalogue of hyper-realistic mixed reality training applications. By leveraging GigXR’s technical expertise in building holographic patient scenarios and the platform to deliver them, Sidney will open up new and unprecedented access to the emergency training tools guided by its team of medical experts.

GigXR’s platform allows instructors wearing a Microsoft HoloLens headset to evolve scenarios, move and add content, change the hologram patient’s vitals, and watch all actions of the users in real-time. The platform allows learners to use either real-world or mixed reality medical tools, listen to accurate sounds such as breathing and heart rate and see the patient’s charts on-screen. Additionally, GigXR’s platform extends accessibility so that users can view all of these scenarios real time with mobile devices such as any augmented reality (AR) enabled iOS and Android device.