To enhance the prehospital combat casualty care, the U.S. Air Force and SimX expanded their partnership. This means that $1,7M extra is going to be invested in the development of medical simulation training using virtual reality (VR). This effort is part of the Virtual Advancement of Learning for Operational Readiness (VALOR) program at SimX. The VR medical training helps to train healthcare workers in every setting.
SimX delivers virtual reality medical simulation platform that is used by Mayo Clinic, Stanford, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, the US Air Force, and others. Now U.S. Air Force has committed to an investment of 1,7 million dollar to advance the medical simulations to new areas of expertise. The development includes airway and ventilator management, extrication tools, enhanced portable monitors and ultrasound, and an improved physiological model for field sedation and paralysis.
VR medical training further developed
Additionally, the project aims to substantially increase the reliability and ease of use of VR simulation across the global scope of deployment of technology, including automated self-serve familiarization and simplified training orchestration. “We couldn’t be more excited about this project,” said Karthik V Sarma PhD, Principal Investigator of the effort and Chief Technology Officer of SimX, “which will accelerate the rapid advancement of VR medical training simulation technology as a crucial modality for training healthcare workers in every setting.”
The SimX Virtual Reality Medical Simulation System (VRMSS) is already used by the Air Force in tactical combat casualty care (TCCC) training, as well as across hundreds of civilian medical organizations for training physicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians, pharmacists, and other professionals. Col Clayton Rabens, Wing Surgeon of the U.S. Air Force 24th Special Operations Wing, said: “The enhanced casualty care training capabilities being developed under this project are essential to maintaining the highest level of readiness for a future of large-scale operations conducted against near-peer adversaries. The new capability to train these critical skills in a virtual domain will ensure that our elite operators continue to provide the highest level of care to US and partner force casualties.”
Project managed by AFLCMC
Funding for this VR medical training was provided by the Department of the Air Force (DAF) under the AFWERX/AFVentures Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) – Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The project is managed by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) Special Operations Forces program office on behalf of the DAF.
