Pediatric Emergencies Virtual Reality Applications

Why is the Program Important?

Healthcare professionals are required to complete a continuing education training program once every two years, thereby, leaving a potential gap in skills-based training to occur during the two years where clinical skills are not being refreshed and practiced.

Virtual reality offers an innovative educational modality that promotes clinical skills based-practice that can be done in a low dose/high frequency fashion for better skills retention. It also offers a potential training solution when restrictions exist on face-to-face training.

Who Can Benefit?

The target market for the pediatric emergencies VR applications is the prehospital professional and first responder. However, any health care professional who is responsible for the emergency care of children may find this product beneficial. Other virtual reality content aimed at other types of health professionals can also be developed.

Program Details

The pediatric VR applications use artificial intelligence (AIenabled) voice technology to replicate real-world interaction and to create highly sophisticated, self-directed learning experiences that adapt to the providers’ proficiency level to optimize learning gains. The current offerings are described below.

Pediatric Emergency Assessment™

With true-to-life assessment and stabilization scenarios, learners are virtually presented with infants and children who present with physical findings of:

• Stability
• Compensated & Decompensated Shock
• Respiratory Distress
• Respiratory Failure
• CNS/Metabolic Disorders
• Cardiopulmonary Failure

Pediatric Emergency Assessment™ includes eleven vignettes that may be completed on a quarterly basis or all at once. Providers may receive 0.5 to 0.75 CAPCE credits for each successful vignette completion.

The VR scenarios may be used as a stand-alone training option, or as a complementary resource to the AAP’s existing Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals (PEPP) continuing education training program, which has trained over 300,000 EMS providers since 2000.

Pediatric Emergency Care™

After refreshing pediatric assessment skills through the Pediatric Emergency Assessment™ application, first responders can practice the role of team lead, managing multiple in-home resuscitation scenarios with Pediatric Emergency Care™. The learner will evaluate infants and children and identify underlying conditions, then intervene with pediatric resuscitation workflows — all in accordance with American Heart Association and Red Cross guidelines. Learners train virtually on pediatric length tapes, dosing medications and electricity, team-based management skills, and full cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

To Learn More

For more information about the VR applications, visit www.aap.org/EMSvirtualreality.
To view the demo on these products, visit: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=OOujUSl300E.

How is the Program Implemented?

The method for delivery and implementation of the virtual reality applications is completely virtual. Providers practice communication skills by using voice commands to control the application and interact with virtual team members. Virtual scenarios accurately model physical findings that providers must detect in order to differentiate severe from non-severe illness. The applications are compatible with major VR hardware such as Oculus Quest, Rift, Rift S and HTC Vive Pro.

Delivering Value and Impact

There is great impact and value from frequent hands-on skills training as it lessens the chance of clinical skills decay and promotes training in a safe and simulated environment. EMS providers can complete the VR applications on their own time, and achieve competence and confidence in how they will respond to a pediatric emergency.

New 2020 American Heart Association ECC Guidelines recommend the use of deliberate practice and mastery learning during life support training; booster, or brief sessions and spaced-learning in multiple sessions; and virtual reality training, which is the use of a computer interface to create an immersive environment, and gamified learning that can be incorporated into resuscitation training.

Program Partnerships

The VR applications have been developed in collaboration with our partner Health Scholars (www.healthscholars.com).