Sectors · Healthcare & Public Health
Rehearse the rare case before it happens at the bedside.
3D clinical and public health training that comes to the hospital, clinic, nursing school or parish health unit, in short sessions booked around shifts.
What you get
- Practice close to the floorThe truck parks at the site. Staff walk out for a short session and walk back to their unit.
- Built around your hardest caseThe session is built or licensed around the case your team most needs to rehearse.
- The whole team in one sceneEveryone sees the same room, patient, 3D organ or community map at once, and talks face to face.
- Mistakes cost nothingThe mistake happens in simulation, not at the bedside. An instructor replays the moment and the team runs it again.
- Practice and proof kept apartTime spent practicing in the simulation is recorded separately from skills an instructor has checked hands-on.
Deep Dive
For grant officers and engineers.
SP-03 · Healthcare technology and public health VRHow a session works
Steps
- A hospital, clinic, school or health unit names the case its people most need to rehearse.
- The Mobile CAVE comes to the site. Each participant puts shoe covers over their shoes and puts on 3D glasses.
- The team examines, decides and acts. The monitor alarms, the patient responds, the outbreak spreads or slows.
- An instructor replays the moment and asks why. The team runs the case again, harder or different.
Who it serves
- Hospitals and health systems
- Rural clinics and small facilities, when the truck is scheduled to their site on a tour
- Nursing, EMS and allied-health schools, before clinical placements start
- Parish health units and public health teams
- Hospital incident command teams, alongside emergency preparedness training
For grant officersWhat the research says
Evidence cited in the deep dive
- A 2020 meta-analysis of 12 studies and 821 participants (Journal of Medical Internet Research) found VR improved knowledge in nursing education compared with other methods (standardized mean difference 0.58), with no significant difference for skills, satisfaction, confidence or performance time.
- That result shapes the design: 3D sessions build understanding and decisions, and hands-on skills are checked separately by an instructor.
- In a BMJ Open study, CDC emergency responders who completed a VR response scenario agreed others would benefit (97%), said it represented real response scenarios (72%) and would use lessons learned in the field (71%).
Louisiana need cited in the deep dive
- About 73% of Louisiana residents live in areas designated as having a health care provider shortage (Louisiana Illuminator, 2022).
- The Louisiana Board of Regents reported an estimated shortage of about 6,000 registered nurses by 2030.
XR Jags projectThe Office of Public Health VR Project
What it is
Led across all four campuses of the Southern University System, the project brings VR, tablet-based simulations and advanced visualization tools to healthcare training, with Health Physics and Anatomy simulations and the Anatomage Table, which provides life-sized, 3D digital cadavers.
Reported outcomes (from the student team)
- VR and tablet-based anatomy and health simulations for 200+ biology and nursing students annually.
- Hands-on access to life-sized 3D digital cadavers.
- A replicable, statewide model for VR-enhanced curricula in K-12 and undergraduate healthcare pipelines.
TechnicalFor engineers: how the content is built
Build
- Scenes are built in Southern University's XR Development Studio with Unity and OpenXR.
- The same scenes can run on headsets for individual practice between truck visits.
- The CAVE shows the scene on the walls and floor so a team shares one view; headsets isolate each learner.
- Over time the project builds a library of Louisiana-specific scenarios, each reusable across many sites.
Sources: the AM Lab deep dive “Healthcare technology and public health VR” and the suvrjags.org Office of Public Health VR Project write-up. See also Immersion in Motion sub-projects.