Virtual reality (VR) training and data analysis technology platform FundamentalVR has announced a three-year strategic alliance and joint development agreement with US-based medical centre Mayo Clinic. This agreement will see both companies developing surgical VR simulation and education products.
As well as developing new products, the agreement will see the current release of the Fundamental Surgery platform being used in Mayo Clinic’s simulation centres, which are located in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.
FundamentalVR intends to use the expertise of the surgeons and clinical practitioners at the Mayo Clinic, along with other experts in areas such as 3D modelling, data science and simulation in order to create immersive simulation content, assessment criteria and other products for FundamentalVR’s haptic and VR medical simulation platform.
Richard Vincent, CEO at FundamentalVR commented, “This collaboration with the Mayo Clinic will dramatically accelerate our progress and ensures that the FundamentalVR team has access to the very best surgical knowledge. Mayo Clinic and FundamentalVR are both ultimately focused on improving patient outcomes and with this in mind we share the belief that the comparative data insight and measurement available through our platform will have a profoundly positive impact on the wellbeing of people around the world. Our haptic + immersive VR platform has already proven itself to offer a new way to allow skills development and we are proud that this has been recognised by one of the USA’s leading and most inspirational medical groups.”
The agreement will see Mayo Clinic and FundamentalVR collaborating on a range of simulations will an initial focus on the area of General Surgery. There are plans to then move into other areas such as robotic and patient-specific simulation using digital imaging and communications in medicine data along with 3D modelling. The aim is to bring the expertise of the Mayo Clinic into new areas of education, assessment and evaluation.
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