An Australian-first virtual reality (VR) program has been designed to help emergency department teams in Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) prepare for dangerous situations.
Creating an immersive training experience, the custom-built VR program ‘Code Black’ puts staff into virtual situations of personal threat to prepare them for similar experiences on the front line.
Developed by WSLHD Research and Education Network digital innovation lead Nathan Moore and Martin Brown from the University of Sydney’s Westmead Initiative, the Code Black VR program is a cost-effective way to train staff.
The program is also designed to offer staff greater flexibility by allowing them to practice at a time and place that best suits them without the need for supervision or support from an educator.
Mr Moore believes the VR program is a “game changer” in the way education will now be able to be delivered.
“One of the real advantages of using portable virtual reality untethered headsets is that the clinician can take them and use them when they want to,” Mr Moore said.
Westmead Hospital Emergency Department registrar Dr Clarisse Puno said that the VR program provides a “true to life” experience.
“It’s actually super realistic, I actually felt like I was in the ward with an aggressive patient in front of me. So comparing the VR to real life experience, it felt very similar,” Dr Puno said.
“It’s definitely going to make me more comfortable in the situation when there is an aggressive patient, in terms of being more confident in knowing how to de-escalate them and knowing which techniques to use.”
WSLHD Chief Executive Graeme Loy believes the program will complement existing in-person training.
“Our current simulation modules have been great for training staff, and we will continue to use them in tandem, but the immersive VR environment this technology offers is the closest thing to on-the-job training or resource intensive simulation-based training,” Mr Loy said.
“This 360-degree portable technology is a game changer for us. We’ve already seen great success in this space with the ALS-SimVR cardiac arrest module winning our District’s 2021 Chief Executive Award for helping to significantly reduce cardiac arrests in the inpatient population; so I have high hopes for the effectiveness of this approach.”
Ellie Busby is a news reporter for Western Sydney Publishing Group. A graduate of the University of Hertfordshire and Western Sydney University, she is a journalism Major. Ellie has worked with Universal Media, The Cova Project and for a range of other organisations. In 2024, Ellie was named Young Writer of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.