Virtual reality surgical training platform FundamentalVR today announced the expansion of its educational services, Fundamental Surgery, with the addition of @HomeVR.

This new expansion allows users of standalone headsets to access educational simulations from accredited by medical professional bodies for the first time. It will provide the Fundamental Surgery platform on headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus.

“Leveraging low-cost hardware, our multimodal platform allows medical institutions to take advantage of the proven benefits of surgical simulations at scale, and in ways that ensure the consistency of training delivery, and effectiveness of their curriculums,” said Richard Vincent, co-founder and chief executive of FundamentalVR.

Using virtual reality, FundamentalVR can generate close-to-life surgical training simulations in an immersive environment that responds to the movements and gestures of the trainee.

The company has set itself apart from the rest of the medical training industry by creating the world’s first surgical simulation platform using HapticVR, which combines VR with touch feedback using a system called “haptics.” Already deployed in hospitals around the world, this immersive setup allows surgeons to experience the same sights, sounds and sensation as would be present in a real procedure.

With FundamentalVR’s hardware-agnostic software setup, the platform can mimic the physical cues of surgical actions, medical tools and tissue variations.

The HapticVR platform represents a significant advance in training solutions for medical education by fusing cutaneous, tactile vibrations, and kinesthetics, force feedback and position, haptic technologies in a single platform. The software is optimized for different stages of the learning process, putting as much surgical simulation and training into one platform as possible.

To make the training as accessible as possible, HapticVR uses off-the-shelf hardware such as personal computers, laptops, VR headsets and haptic arms. The vision is to make the setup less than a tenth of the cost of current learning practices and put it into the hands of more surgical students and educational organizations.

The @HomeVR platform extension lacks haptic support but allows students to take their work home with them or learn remotely. It uses consumer-grade standalone headsets, such as those from Oculus and HTC, which makes it more accessible and provides a way for students to work around their own needs and schedules. That can augment the use of HapticVR in the hospital setting by allowing students to continue practicing even when they don’t have access to the haptic equipment.

Only a single login to the FundamentalVR platform is needed to use either setup and both feed into the same knowledge simulations, educational resources and data collection.

“The @HomeVR modality provides a highly mobile and cost-effective way to acquire the knowledge and understanding of the technical skills required to carry out surgical procedures,” Vincent said. “The HapticVR modality helps students apply and deepen this knowledge while becoming proficient in the skills required to carry out the procedures.

Together, he added, “they provide a more powerful education platform. No other software platform can do both nor have received  Continuing Medical Education or Continuing Professional Development accreditation from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons of England.”

To assist with teaching, the platform also includes an intuitive and secure data dashboard. The system can track hundreds of data points to provide a level of analysis not previously available to instructors and trainees.

Every user interaction can be monitored, measured and recorded, such as surgical gaze, respect for tissue and efficiency of movement. Using VR, it’s possible to instrument gesture and movement in a way that’s not possible in real-life situations, giving a new dimension to understand surgical protocols and develop best practices.

Photo: FundamentalVR