VR Training for Emergency Stroke Nursing Care

Thanks to a new virtual reality (VR) training program developed by the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Advanced Training Systems, emergency department nurses across NSW will acquire vital real-time experience in stroke care.

Responding to a demand for regular high-quality training in rural, regional, and distant locations, the TACTICS VR program provides nurses with immersive, interactive, and evidence-based training to enhance outcomes for persons presenting with stroke.

Stroke is a time-critical medical emergency, according to program director and University of Newcastle Professor Rohan Walker, and ensuring quick response and treatment times is vital to saving lives and enhancing stroke recovery.

“By simulating real-time scenarios, the TACTICS VR training program gives emergency nurses essential practise in how to handle those first critical minutes when a patient presents with stroke,” stated Professor Walker.

“This VR training is particularly critical in rural, regional and remote areas where there is a greater chance of less experienced staff treating stroke patients, where they treat fewer stroke cases and have limited access to high-quality training.” 

“This is the fourth stroke training module we’ve produced using the TACTICS VR program, and our previous work confirms healthcare staff find the training easy to use and it improves their confidence in best-practice clinical care.”

The TACTICS VR stroke training program, developed in partnership with the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Advanced Training Systems, nurses from NSW Health, and the NSW Health Agency for Clinical Innovation, simulates a real-world emergency room inside a VR headset.

According to Dr. Steven Maltby, the TACTICS VR Project’s lead, nurses taking the training must navigate their role as a stroke patient arrives at the hospital and manage their workflow processes through various scenes, including pre-hospital assessment and preparation, initial patient assessment, imaging and monitoring of the patient, and treatment and consent.

Professor Walker stated that the purpose in developing the program was to emphasize the nurse’s involvement in emergency stroke management.

“The aim of the training is to increase awareness of nursing processes in hyper-acute management and emphasise the critical importance of effective communication and team coordination in the first 24-hours after stroke,” Professor Walker said.

So far, 25 VR headsets have been provided to regional and metropolitan hospitals, with a particular emphasis on smaller hospitals where personnel may have had minimal exposure to stroke.

Dr Jean-Frédéric Levesque, NSW Health Deputy Secretary Clinical Innovation and Research and Chief Executive, Agency for Clinical Innovation, said VR training was another innovative way the public health system was utilizing technology to improve patient care.

“VR training gives patients and clinicians access to best-practice stroke care, especially in regional areas where a local hospital does not receive the same volume of stroke patients as its city counterparts,” Dr Levesque said.

“This new training program complements the successful NSW Telestroke Service, which uses video consultation to provide people living in rural and regional NSW with rapid access to specialist stroke diagnoses and treatment. Telestroke is now operating in 23 hospitals across the state.”

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