Immersive Technology in Healthcare Training (ITHT)

Staffing shortages are a challenge that our healthcare system has faced for some time, but which was magnified by the COVID-19 health crisis (UNRIC, 2021).  A recent survey by the HR services group Liantis (2022) of executives from 73 healthcare organizations found that as many as eight in 10 healthcare organizations are currently experiencing critical staffing shortages, particularly in the area of nurses. Causes include an increasing and more complex patient demand for care, an aging workforce, an increasing number of caregivers leaving the sector due to workload and lack of autonomy, and a decreasing number of young people entering the labor market (Adriaansen, 2018). In addition, health care is constantly evolving and medical knowledge is increasing exponentially (Densen, 2011; Corish, 2018; Chuang, 2021).  Part of the solution to reduce the outflow of nurses involves continuing education.

Having nurses educate themselves not only allows them to hone essential knowledge and skills, but also proves to be highly motivating (European Commission, 2022). Immersive Technology in Healthcare Training therefore focuses on providing training offerings for nurses using immersive technology (ImT). ImT, such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality, offers opportunities in the context of training within healthcare. For example, it allows specific skills to be practiced in a safe learning environment. This leads not only to better knowledge transfer (Woon et al., 2021), but also to higher satisfaction, self-efficacy and engagement when ImT is used in the context of in-service training within healthcare (Ryan et al., 2022). Although nurses can also benefit from in-service training with ImT, this technology is primarily deployed and researched among physicians (95%), compared to nurses (only 3%) (Tang et al., 2021). Nevertheless, interviews with the companion group indicate a high demand for ImT training in terms of nursing operations and communication skills for nurses. So why are nurses not (yet) exploiting this potential of ImT in Flanders? There is extensive technical knowledge around the development of ImT training modules, but ImT developers have little feel for the requirements for training nurses.  Although there are training organizations that focus on in-service training within the care sector, they lack knowledge about ImT. Consequently, care and welfare organizations with a clear interest in continuing education for their nurses through ImT do not yet have an aligned offer available. Creating synergy between these three actors is therefore essential.

With this project, Thomas More wants to support care and welfare institutions, ImT developers and training organizations within the care sector in three important challenges: 1) bundling, translating and disseminating knowledge about ImT for training nurses regarding nursing technical actions and communicative skills, 2) strengthening the synergy between these parties and their applications in order to better align future developments, and 3) introducing a substantiated plan of approach tailored to each target group.