UbiSim is a multidisciplinary team of nursing educators, healthcare simulation experts, software engineers and 3D artists, working to combine nursing simulation and virtual reality for an immersive learning experience. Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, the company’s goal is to make nursing simulation more affordable, more accessible and more realistic than ever.
Using unique benefits presented through immersive virtual reality in medicine, UbiSim offers a complete simulation lab on a flexible platform. This allows the user to create and experience realistic clinical situations without needing to access physical simulation centers that are often booked months ahead of time.
Founded in 2016, UbiSim’s solution combines intuitive interactions provided by VR, flexible modules, and immediate feedback after each clinical simulation session. Dedicated to the nursing industry, UbiSim works exclusively on nursing simulation and immersive, interactive virtual reality solutions. This focus has allowed the company to build a platform that responds best to the unique needs of nursing educators and nursing learners.
Educators are able to instruct based on UbiSim’s pre-built clinical scenarios or customize scenarios to best fit their own needs. Using UbiSim’s authoring tool, nursing educators and technicians can change any scenario’s parameters, in addition to coming up with their own.
Supporting the educator’s creativity by helping them reach their pedagogical objectives is at the center of UbiSim’s mission. The company gives educators unprecedented flexibility to adapt existing content to fit their learning objectives, without any technical knowledge.
What the company calls a “complete simulation lab in a backpack,” the UbiSim healthcare simulation solution immerses learners around lifelike patients to maximize their engagement. When interacting with VR, the learners are able to develop clinical reasoning, decision making and communication skills.
While nothing can replace the practice gained from actual patient interactions or high-fidelity patient simulators with full Interprofessional education (IPE) conversations, by allowing learners to practice nursing at any time and in any place that has a VR headset — UbiSim is helping to “change the game”!
UbiSim showcases the company’s latest innovations and best practices in healthcare simulation at the International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSiH), INACSL, ASPiH, SESAM, SimGHOSTS, and at other medical simulation conferences each year.
How the UbiSim Simulation Solution Works
With UbiSim, users are a minute away from accessing high-fidelity simulation scenarios. All they need is a standing area and space to set up a laptop. To set up the equipment, only a gaming laptop and an ordinary VR headset are required. The content can then be shared on a big screen or a projector.
Like most educational tools, the UbiSim solution does require training prior to use. In addition to the company’s documentation and educational videos, systematic onsite training is provided to clients and users. For learners, UbiSim comes with a tutorial and videos explaining the main controls within the VR simulation.
Using the solution takes no more than 5 to 10 minutes to set up on a computer and VR headset, and to launch UbiSim. For the best user experience, UbiSim recommends 40 square feet of free space. There are a lot of possible configurations for setting up the equipment. A VR simulation expert team can assist users in defining the best possible space arrangement within space requirements.
Once set up, the UbiSim solution works in three steps and is followed by instant feedback to provide nursing students with specific clinical scenarios practice. First, the user must choose among a growing number of scenarios or customize existing ones with a variety of visual, physical and behavioral situations.
Next, nursing trainees will practice the clinical situations in a safe and standardized environment while developing the essential critical thinking and communication skills. Without menus and point-and-click actions, the UbiSim solution uses hand gestures for a genuinely immersive and intuitive experience.
After the training period concludes, the learner will review the results of their performance. Once a session is started, the user will be able to inspect, auscultate and palpate life-like patients, and use a wide variety of medical equipment through intuitive hand gestures. They can access medical records and documents, and decide to administer a treatment or perform an intervention, as well. Just as they would in a real-life clinical environment, learners are able to communicate with the patient, family or medical staff during each scenario.
Debriefing with personalized feedback and audio or visual playback is available upon completion of each session, and faculty has full access to the aggregated data. Through the simulation debriefing, learners can visualize a complete recording of the session. They may review personalized performance feedback, go through a quiz to assess understanding and reflect on the session with self-guided questions.
Note: UbiSim is compatible with the Oculus Rift S or the Oculus Quest with the Oculus Link Cable. The solution runs on laptop or desktop computers with the following specifications: Intel Core i7, 16GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060. There are many options and PC hardware is constantly improving. UbiSim stresses that users should not hesitate to consult with the company when initially selecting their hardware.
Benefits of Using the UbiSim VR Simulation Solution
Fully immersing learners with a high level of perceptual fidelity gives them the opportunity for practical, effective training and behavior change. Further, the UbiSim solution increases throughput and access to simulation, as complex clinical situations can be started in seconds, with minimal faculty resources.
Highly interactive, the UbiSim healthcare simulation solution allows learners to gain experience by doing, rather than simply receiving instruction. As they become more engaged, they are better prepared for real-world clinical situations and develop new skills faster. The emotional nature of VR also makes a difference during the learning process, forcing users to be physically present, engaged and emotionally invested in their patients.
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Since repetition is an essential part of the learning process, UbiSim developed the medical simulation solution to allow users to practice skills until mastery is achieved. Using a powerful physiological model for the virtual patients, all learners are granted access to the same consistent and standardized experiences.
Integrating the platform into a clinical education program allows two students to work together without the need for added faculty resources. The multi-user functionality allows up to four active learners to participate, practice and interact together in the same virtual scenario at one time — from the same or remote locations.
The company works in close cooperation with partners and experts across North America and Europe to focus on comfort and realism for the most effective learning. In compliance with the International Nursing Association for. Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) standards, the company also solicits help and feedback from the most important stakeholders – nursing students themselves. UbiSim is always looking for the best and motivated talents to join the team and help the company create a platform that will help to train millions of nurses globally.
