Virtual medicine room - skills training in VR

1st of March 2024 ✍️ by Bjørn Morten Steimler
Together with Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (HINN) we have developed a virtual medicine room. The solution allows medical and nursing students to train in pharmaceutical drug handling in a virtual environment. The solution is safe, cost-effective and without the risk of harming patients.

You find yourself in a virtual copy of a generic medicine room and are tasked with preparing medicines for various patients according to their patient records.

"We want to enable our students to excel in medication management, but our medical room could only accommodate 2 students at the time. We became curious about the possibility of creating a practice room where many students can practice anytime. The answer was to conceive a virtual medical room. Could this also reduce test anxiety?"

- Lucie Furulund, Assistant professor at the Department of Nursing, Inland Norway University of Applied Science

A safe arena
The students solve carefully thought-out tasks that are based on HINN's subject expertise and best practice. The first task is pretty simple and then the tasks gradually become more difficult and more complex.

Traditionally, the exam in pharmaceutical calculations has had a high failure rate, and university lecturers Lucie Furulund and Frank Martinsen saw a need to rethink the teaching in this subject. Increased competence in drug handling means increased patient safety and is therefore important to practice.

-Students demand more practical training, mass practice and a safe arena where no patients can get hurt. The arithmetic test is gone. Mathematics is still included, but as an integrated part of the training and the assessment of the students' level of knowledge. Technology is the future of education, says Frank Rune Martinsen, university lecturer at HINN.

How does the virtual medicine room work?
Students puts on a VR headset and enter a virtual replica of a medicine room. Here, they are given a journal describing a patient and what medicines they are to prepare for him/her. The students have access to all the medicines that are normally handled when treating patients.

When the medicines are prepared according to the medical record, they get feedback if they made any mistakes.

The virtual medicine room has been developed in our CORE platform, with all associated functions. This means that you can enter the medicine room alone - or with someone. You can thus practice by yourself, in a group or together with a teacher.