UCM Students Use Augmented Reality Technology to Help Nursing Students Practice Real-life Healthcare Scenarios

 

Student developers from the University of Central Missouri are working with the university’s School of Nursing to provide an immersive learning experience for nursing students. Using state-of-the-art equipment in the UCM Lee’s Summit Mixed Reality Studio, the students – known as Team Jupiter – are developing simulation guides for an augmented healthcare world.

 

The innovative simulation includes a step-by-step virtual assistant to help the nursing students perform various tasks, allowing them to practice real-life healthcare scenarios.

 

“It will help nursing students to understand the processes like CPR, blood sugar and heart assessment,” said Nayan Dixit, Team Jupiter leader. “To begin with, we started with the CPR process to simulate chest compressions and artificial manual breathing which is used in cardiac emergency conditions.”

 

Team Jupiter also includes Divya Chaturvedi, Hardik Bharatkumar Somaiya, Manish Mondal, Suhas Dhar and Tanmayee Swathi Mongati.  

 

At the Mixed Reality Studio, a part of UCM’s Gigabit Lab, innovators have the opportunity to use the studio’s leading-edge devices to create, develop and deploy both augmented and virtual reality experiences.

 

“The Mixed Reality Studio has been really helpful in terms of providing the devices like HoloLens and Oculus Quests as well as a lab-like environment for carrying out the experiments and fostering innovation,” Dixit said.

 

In addition, the student team has worked with Annie Wallace, UCM School of Nursing assistant professor. 

 

“Dr. Wallace has been really helpful in providing academic materials, experience flow guidance as well as valuable feedback on improving the application,” Dixit added. 

 

"I am so impressed with the projects Team Jupiter is working on for the UCM School of Nursing,” Wallace said. “The scenarios they are building using mixed-reality devices and simulations are a great way for our nursing students to practice skills in a realistic and applicable environment. It will help our faculty demonstrate and teach skills, critical thinking and nursing reasoning. Our students will use these scenarios to build a deeper perspective and understanding of material we cover in lecture and in our skills lab. It allows our students the opportunity to practice in the augmented environment with faculty, or in independent practice time. We are very excited to continue building new experiences with Team Jupiter.  We are working together to build the future for nursing education at UCM." 

 

The team’s goal is to complete the application by summer. “All in all, it has been a steep learning experience for us as a team working on this cutting edge futuristic technologies,” he said.

 

Team Jupiter is one of several student teams creating real-world virtual and augmented reality applications for area organizations and businesses through UCM’s Mixed Reality Studio.