Oxford Medical Simulation is offering online VR training to help busy hospitals and medical facilities as they are being crushed by large numbers of patients during the coronavirus pandemic.
A virtual reality (VR) medical training system built by Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS) is now being offered for free during the COVID-19 pandemic to help hospitals and medical schools bring in badly-needed additional staffers to provide patient care. OMS is providing the free use of its VR training system to health care facilities in the US, Canada and the UK so retired doctors and nurses can get back up to speed on patient care quickly. The hope is that these doctors and nurses can return to help treat a steady stream of patients with other more typical medical emergencies, such as heart attacks, strokes, and broken bones while specialists are assisting coronavirus patients.
“At the moment, during the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals are beginning to recruit more doctors and nurses, but they are also bringing doctors and nurses back into practice who have left previously” due to retirements or going into other fields, said Dr. Jack Pottle, a physician in acute and internal medicine and the chief medical officer for OMS.
“There is this huge need to train people up quickly, whether they are in the profession or whether they are coming back to the profession to help during the pandemic,” he said. Thousands of doctors and nurses are returning to the medical field now in response to the crisis, he added.
