vr surgery – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

April 15, 2020

SIGN Fracture Care & Precision OS Provide Oculus Quests to Aid VR Surgical Training in Developing Countries

A couple of months ago surgical training specialist Precision OS hosted a worldwide virtual reality (VR) training course during the Global Spine Congress (GSC) helping to showcase its educational platform. Today, the company has announced a partnership with humanitarian organization SIGN Fracture Care to bring surgical training to orthopaedic surgeons in
developing countries.

Precision

This has been made possible thanks to Epic Games collaborating with Precision OS, providing an Epic MegaGrant because the training company uses Unreal Engine to build the VR training solution.

SIGN Fracture Care specialises in providing access to fracture surgery for those that can’t afford it by donating orthopaedic education and implant systems. Its partnership with Precision OS means an expansion of these efforts which currently serve 365 hospitals across 53 countries. Oculus Quest’s preloaded with Precision’s surgical training platform will be distributed to these hospitals, allowing physicians to be taught remotely using the software’s multiplayer option.

“From the day we founded the company, we had a vision for using the immense scalability of virtual reality training to improve surgeon training and raise the standard of care worldwide,” states Danny Goel, M.D., CEO and co-founder of Precision OS. “SIGN Fracture Care International has been dedicated to that same mission and we are proud to support their work. We are grateful to our partners in this effort who are helping us to realize our collective vision.”

Precision

David Shearer, M.D. and Richard Gellman, M.D., surgeons and SIGN Board Members as well as founder and president of SIGN Fracture Care, Lewis Zirkle M.D. will provide the training.

“As it stands we have to spend several months a year travelling or flying surgeons to our headquarters to do training with the SIGN System,” says Dr. Shearer. “With VR, we have the opportunity to provide high-quality training remotely, which can markedly reduce the time and expense required. This has the potential to free up resources to train more surgeons, invest in manufacturing, and ultimately achieve greater impact.”

VR is proving to be a cost-effective training solution across a range of industries, not just healthcare, from teaching schoolchildren to enterprise. As the sector continues to grow, VRFocus will keep you updated.

April 2, 2020

FundamentalVR Brings Its Professional Surgical Training Platform Home With Quest Support

FundamentalVR, a professional surgical training platform, is finally bringing its expansive platform to the Oculus Quest for use at home.

Traditionally, Fundamental’s platform pairs with haptic feedback hardware to deliver precise tutorials on surgical procedures. We’ve tried HapticVR, as it’s called, a few times and been amazed at just how realistic the experience feels when using haptic controllers. Carrying out injections and other actions feels incredibly lifelike.

For its standalone VR integration, named @HomeVR, Fundamental ditches the haptics in favor of accessible access on Oculus Quest and the HTC Vive Focus Plus. The service still offers all of the procedures and features you’ll find in HapticVR. You might not have the force feedback, but the service should still offer a worthy approximation for extra training on top of the usual offerings. Check out a trailer for the service below.

“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,” Richard Vincent, CEO and co-founder of FundamentalVR said in a prepared statement. “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.”

Note that this is still very much a professional product; you can’t just download @HomeVR off of the Oculus Quest store. It’s intended for at home training for doctors and nurses that allows them to track stats persistently, whether they’re using the home version of the original offering. Given the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, home support arrives at a good time.

The post FundamentalVR Brings Its Professional Surgical Training Platform Home With Quest Support appeared first on UploadVR.

April 1, 2020

FundamentalVR Expands Surgical Training Platform Support to Oculus Quest

British tech company FundamentalVR has been at the forefront of virtual reality (VR) training in the healthcare system, primarily focused on surgical education via its Fundamental Surgery platform. Today, the company has announced an expansion into standalone headset support for the likes of Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus with a platform extension called @HomeVR.

FundamentalVR

Thanks to standalone headsets offering a low-cost alternative and being easier to run than their PC-based counterparts, devices like Oculus Quest make VR training a far more viable and convenient option. Fundamental Surgery is hardware-agnostic, able to mimic the physical cues of surgical actions, medical tools, and tissue variations.

Already deployed in hospitals worldwide, the surgical platform utilises off-the-shelf hardware combined with HapticVR sense-of-touch, enabling users acquisition of real-world skills. Surgeons experience the same sights, sounds and feeling they would in a real procedure.

FundamentalVR “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 continues. “The HapticVR modality helps students apply and deepen this knowledge while becoming proficient in the skills required to carry out the procedures. Together, they provide a more powerful education platform. No other software platform can do both nor have received CME or CPD accreditation from the America Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons of England.”

You won’t find @HomeVR on the Oculus Store. Users download the simulations by logging into their Fundamental Surgery account and selecting their desired procedure. Procedures are being phased in for existing customers starting with Total Hip Arthroplasty (Anterior Approach) with more on the way.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of FundamentalVR and the healthcare industry as a whole as it continues to embrace VR technology and its educational abilities, offering up t date news on the latest advancements.

February 26, 2020

Global Spine Congress to Host Cadaver-Less Training Course for 100 Surgeons Using Oculus Quest

This May will see the annual Global Spine Congress (GSC) take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the largest events in the world for spine surgeons. As part of the three-day event, orthopaedic surgical training specialist Precision OS will be hosting a unique virtual reality (VR) training course involving 100 orthopaedic surgeons from around the world.

Precision OS

Using Oculus Quest headsets, Precision OS’ educational modules are designed to help the user to learn concepts faster, with the course during the GSC a perfect time to demonstrate how VR cadaver-less training works. A study published in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery – American which was conducted by Precision OS and performed in collaboration with the Canadian Shoulder and Elbow Society (CSES) found that VR saw a 570% improvement in efficiency over traditional approaches to training.

“We considered how to improve patient outcomes very carefully when creating our surgeon training platform,” said Dr. Danny Goel, an orthopaedic shoulder surgeon and Chief Executive Officer at Precision OS in a statement. “Being in the operating room and understanding the challenges we face as surgeons is how we approached our model. There are critical unmet needs with current models of simulation that are required for surgeons to become experts — and we feel our method helps to fill those gaps.”

Headsets like Oculus Quest now make this process easier, removing obstacles like wires and PC’s which can be restrictive.

Precision OS image3 “The Global Spine Congress is very excited to offer a novel course on spinal procedures using the Precision OS virtual reality platform to replace cadavers and teach complex spinal procedures,” said Dr. Jeffrey Wang, Course Chairman and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Neurosurgery, University of Southern California Spine Center. “It appears the future of surgical simulation is now available, and we are extremely pleased to offer this unique opportunity to utilize modern technology and optimize the educational experience.”

In 2018 Precision OS closed a Series A funding round securing $2.3 million USD of investment towards its surgical platform. Due to the complexities of surgical training, there aren’t many companies in this VR space with FundamentalVR another notable specialist.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of VR and its healthcare potential, reporting back with the latest updates.

October 31, 2019

FundamentalVR Raises $5.6M Investment to Further Develop VR Surgery Training Tools

FundamentalVR, a company specializing in VR medical training, has closed a £4.3 million (~$5.6 million) Series A funding round in effort to further develop its surgical training and data analysis platform, Fundamental Surgery.

The funding round was led by Downing Ventures, with participation from Epic Private Equity, and Brighteyes Ventures. Leading medical institutions also participated in the funding round, including the world-renowned Mayo Clinic and Sana Kliniken, the third largest hospital organization in Germany.

This brings FundamentalVR’s total investment to $9.3 million, the company says. Its penultimate financing round in 2018, amounting to $1.4 million, coincided with a partnership to develop its VR training platform with Mayo Clinic surgeons and clinical practitioners, as well as its 3D modelling, data scientists and simulation specialists.

Fundamental Surgery, the company’s flagship product, has found its way to a number of medical institutions across seven countries, including Mayo Clinic and UCLA in the United States, UCLH in the United Kingdom, and Sana in Germany with initial training packages focused on the orthopedic surgical disciplines. The procedures it currently supports include Spinal Pedicle Screw, Total Hip Arthroplasty (Posterior), Total Hip Arthroplasty (Anterior) and Total Knee Arthroplasty, the company says in a press statement.

Surgical Training Platform FundamentalVR Closes £4.3m Investment Round

FundamentalVR has been evolving its virtual reality (VR) platform providing surgical training solutions for a number of years, combining simulations through Fundamental Surgery with cutting-edge haptics via HapticVR. Today, the company has announced the closing of a £4.3 million GBP ($5.67m USD) Series A round, bringing total funding to £7.2 million.

FundamentalVR

The round was led by Downing Ventures with previous investor Tern Plc participating as well as Epic Private Equity and Brighteye Ventures. Also involved were leading medical institutions including Mayo Clinic in the US and Sana Kliniken, the third-largest hospital organization in Germany.

FundamentalVR will use the funding to further invest in its Fundamental Surgery platform which currently supports procedures including Spinal Pedicle Screw, Total Hip Arthroplasty (Posterior), Total Hip Arthroplasty (Anterior) and Total Knee Arthroplasty.

“We are very pleased to close our Series A round, especially as it includes strategic investment and validation from world-renowned medical institutions, Mayo Clinic and Sana Kliniken, where our platform is currently deployed,” commented Richard Vincent, CEO and co-founder of FundamentalVR in a statement “The investment will allow us to continue to expand the global deployment of the current platform and develop additional capabilities and technologies, including extension of the platform into multimodal education encompassing new standalone headsets such as the Oculus Quest and Vive Focus Plus, covering new surgical disciplines such as general surgical procedures and future capabilities such as patient-specific modeling and emerging interfaces for robotic surgery.”

FundamentalVR

Tern Plc invested £1.9 million in FundamentalVR in May and October 2018. Commenting on its continued support, Tern CEO, Al Sisto, said: “We identified early on that FundamentalVR’s team was developing a platform that was very special. A training and data analysis offering which could revolutionise the skills development of surgical practice, while at the same time creating a database of significant importance to the industry. We are delighted that the value and relevance of this exciting business and its entire staff has been recognised by this outstanding syndicate of new investors we helped solidify.”

As the healthcare industry continues to embrace VR technology and its educational abilities, VRFocus will keep you updated on the latest advancements.

October 2, 2019

FundamentalVR Expands Its VR Surgical Simulation Platform With New Procedures

FundamentalVR has expanded its VR surgical simulation platform to include new procedures and a new scoring system, integrated with its HapticVR technology to help train surgeons around the world.

The Fundamental Surgery platform combines VR experiences with realistic haptic feedback through a pen-shaped peripheral, that can simulate the pressure felt when performing surgery on skin, bones and all the other icky stuff. Jamie tried the technology back in August, and although the realism of the haptics kind of freaked him out, he “couldn’t imagine a better tool for training surgeons.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0eMvdZElgc

FUNDAMENTAL SURGERY – The Flight Simulator for Surgeons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0eMvdZElgc)

FundamentalVR has announced that it’s expanding the simulation to offer a new Facetectomy procedure, centered around the vertebrae and decompression of spinal nerve roots.

The company stated that this “lets trainees and surgeons practice the surgical procedure through an immersive, self-directed experience where they can remove a volume of bone material piece-by-piece, anywhere on the joint.” The new procedure also uses eye-tracking, which was implemented into Fundemental Surgery’s platform a few months ago.

Fundamental Surgery - Facetectomy 2

The graphics for the procedure look quite realistic and gruesome too, as you can see above. There’s no doubt that this technology is one of the best examples of how VR can help educate in industries such as healthcare.

FundamentalVR has also implemented a scoring system that will debut in the Facetectomy procedure. This system will give a percentage score on each session, based on how well users meet objectives for the procedure, which it hopes will facilitate independent learning.

The post FundamentalVR Expands Its VR Surgical Simulation Platform With New Procedures appeared first on UploadVR.

August 16, 2019

Haptic Surgery Platform FundamentalVR Increases Authenticity With Eye-Tracking

FundamentalVR is on a mission to make VR surgery simulation as robust, convincing and efficient as possible. Recently, it made a small but significant step towards that goal with eye-tracking.

Usually when we hear about eye-tracking’s importance to VR, it’s to do with foveated rendering. Eye-tracking as a means of input often feels like an afterthought. But with Fundamental’s platform, which launched commercially earlier this year, it becomes a surprisingly helpful tool.

“The reason we’ve always wanted it is minimizing head movement whilst you’re operating in the real world is really important,” FundamentalVR CEO Richard Vincent tells me. “We track your eye-movement and your surgical sight gaze. Being able to track that with the precision of your eyes as opposed to the movement of your head which is what we’ve been doing so far is just a great step forward.”

When you operate inside FundamentalVR, a virtual window guides you. Interacting with it usually requires you to look up from surgery. Now with HTC’s Vive Pro Eye, though, you can quickly glance at your desired option out of the corner of your eye and then look back. It’s still not as seamless as, say, human interaction in real-life scenarios, but it is indeed a step forward.

It also improves Fundamental’s capabilities as an analytics and assessment platform. Vincent says it allows educators to more clearly identify where users are placing their focus and how to improve on that going forward.

The platform as whole, remains an impressively robust experience. I’ve tried FundamentalVR a few times now. I’m always equally astounded and somewhat grossed-out by how convincing it is. With the pen-shaped controller in hand, which is held by a robotic arm to provide resistance, I trial new features like skin that pushes and bends when I press instruments into it. 3D-printed controllers can be swapped out for specific tasks, too, for enhanced realism.

For Fundamental, though, even this feels preliminary. The team wants to build a versatile platform that works with practically any kind of haptic tech, but it’s at the mercy of those breakthroughs, to some extent. The company’s already integrated support for HaptX gloves, but devices like these are few and far between right now.

“There’s five or six really interesting companies working on haptic technology right now,” Vincent says. “And we’re excited to see them get to robust availability on a global basis at low cost but they’re none of those things right now.”

For now, though, FundamentalVR seems to be expanding in the right areas. This remains one of the best examples of the good VR is doing out there in the world.

The post Haptic Surgery Platform FundamentalVR Increases Authenticity With Eye-Tracking appeared first on UploadVR.

August 8, 2019

UCLA Surgical Training Study Shows VR Beats Traditional Training by 130%

A randomized study conducted at UCLA to test the difference between VR and traditional surgical training found that medical students trained in VR scored significantly better than traditional methods.

Conducted at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, a study titled Randomized, Controlled Trial of a Virtual Reality Tool to Teach Surgical Technique for Tibial Shaft Fracture Intramedullary Nailing examines the efficacy of VR surgical training for a specific procedure and set of equipment.

20 participants were randomly assigned into two groups of 10; one group would train with the Osso VR software using a VR headset and motion controllers, while the other group would follow traditional training with surgical technique guides.

After their training, participants conducted the procedure on an artificial training bone and their performance was filmed. A surgeon evaluator then ranked the performance of each participant across five categories of proficiency: Time and Motion, Instrument Handling, Knowledge of Instruments, Flow of Operation and Forward Planning, and Knowledge of Specific Procedure. The ‘blind’ evaluator didn’t know the training method of any of the participants.

The study found that the VR group performed significantly better in the surgical procedure across all categories, scoring 130% higher than those who trained with traditional methods. In addition to the proficiency measure, a procedure-specific checklist found that those in the VR group completed 38% more steps correctly and completed the procedure 20% faster.

Fundamental Surgery now Used in St George’s University Hospitals’ Training Programme

Software company FundamentalVR has concentrated on the healthcare side of virtual reality (VR) for a number of years now, launching its surgical teaching platform Fundamental Surgery in 2018. This week the company announced that its software has been made part of the curriculum for the South West London Registrar Orthopaedic Training Program.

FundamentalVR

Fundamental Surgery has been adopted by St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for its spine and orthopaedic training, installed within the GAPS Centre (St George’s Advanced Patient Simulation and Skills Centre).

The platform enables trainees to test and hone their skills, able to repeat procedures over and over again. Then using Fundamental Surgery’s live dashboard both trainees and professors can review their performance, accurately seeing a trainees progression.

“We are thrilled to have integrated Fundamental Surgery into the GAPS Centre and to have also had the group of orthopaedic trainees go through the program, experiencing the Posterior Approach Total Hip Replacement (PTHR) on the machine for the first time,” said Omar Sabri, consultant at St George’s University Hospital s NHS Foundation Trust and lead consultant on the integration into the program in a statement. “Through this integration, trainees can now demonstrate the skills they’ve learned by using this technology and have it reflected in their educational portfolio and Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Project. This along with the Royal College approval are just the start for Fundamental Surgery’s platform and the team’s effort to integrate it into all surgical training programs across the country.”

FundamentalVR

“Our education platform has tremendous long – term potential for enhancing surgical training throughout the NHS, in the pursuit of better patient outcomes,” said Richard Vincent, CEO at FundamentalVR. “The implementation is further proof that our haptic simulations provide a virtual environment that can help provides access and aid training development.”

Fundamental Surgery is a hardware agnostic platform, designed to be used with any laptop, VR headset or haptic device. It enables users to experience as close to a real surgical procedure as possible, simulating the same sounds, visuals, and feelings. This is aided by HapticVR, FundamentalVR’s proprietary technology which allows trainees to feel the movement and interaction of tissue, muscle and bone. VRFocus will continue its coverage of FundamentalVR, reporting back with the latest updates.