https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/working-here/gosh-learning-academy/education-and-training/clinical-simulation-centre/virtual-reality-at-gosh/
Virtual Reality at GOSH
Virtual Reality (VR) at GOSH is transforming and improving clinical training and patient care. VR provides an intuitive way for clinical staff and patients to interact with 3D anatomical models, improving the communication and understanding of complex disease and surgical techniques that textbooks and computer screens simply cannot match.
Over the past 5 years, we developed VheaRts, a platform which brings together software solutions and clinical services to transform patient care and education. VheaRts has been developed in a close partnership between engineers from the UCL clinical cardiovascular engineering group and GOSH clinicians ensuring a deep understanding of the needs of educational institutions, conference/workshop organisers, clinical teams and patients.
Software for Training and Anatomy Study
VheaRts software offers an extensive and customisable library of virtual 3D contents to supplement and enrich traditional anatomy lectures, surgical meetings or patient consultations. VheaRts carefully developed visualisation and interaction tools to help participants quickly grasp complex concepts. This reduces the cognitive load of imagining spatial reconstructions in 3D. The multi-users feature of VheaRts extends meetings to as many participants as required, wherever they are in the world.
Institutional Virtual Reality and Technology Embedding
Building on the experience at GOSH and UCL, we offer support to implement virtual reality services based on clinical and educational needs, enabling institutions to take patient care and staff training to the cutting edge through VR.
We can streamline VR adoption in your institution through supporting hardware installation and staff training on software use, 3D modelling techniques, educational methods and hardware maintenance.
We can make the VheaRts software unique to your organisation by customising the virtual environment and pre-loaded anatomy library with specific content. Leverage our in-house expertise to bridge knowledge gaps in your institution by outsourcing patient-specific 3D-modelling and image segmentation work for your clinical/training cases.
Workshop and Conference Services
As we have demonstrated at the 2023 World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery in Washington DC, VheaRts elevates attendees’ conference experience through extended reality anatomy workshop services. Curated for you in partnership with VheaRts, we can deliver a multi-day virtual reality workshop with our team of leading anatomy and imaging experts. This can include creating a bespoke virtual environment for your specialists to deliver their own anatomy demonstrations while we handle all hardware and software logistics for you.
Consulting Services
Every institution is unique in its requirements and opportunities to integrate virtual reality. VHearts works with your team to create bespoke solutions such as customised library content, virtual environments, unique applications, or tools to suit the clinical and educational needs of your organisation.
Get in touch
Why not start the conversation today and explore how VHeaRts can help develop solutions to meet your organisational needs.
Contact us via: virtualreality@gosh.nhs.uk
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The VheaRts platform was used to collaborate between specialists in Rio de Janeiro and Great Ormond Street Hospital on a complex case of conjoined twins. The remote planning feature of VheaRts was used for collaborative discussions on the case - improving the quality of the discussions and saving prior travel. Only for the day of the surgery was it necessary for the surgeon to travel from London to Rio de Janeiro to support the surgery.
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The COVID-19 pandemic forced a transformation of educational methods to be able to continue remotely. For Prof. Cook's cardiac anatomy course, where crucial physical interactions with specimens was blocked, VheaRts provided a virtual space which students could enter from the comfort and safety of their homes. VR proved to be a valuable tool in education and continues to be used as an additional teaching modality in class.
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VheaRts has been proven to be an important communication tool when explaining complex surgeries to patients and their support network. The intuitive and 3D visual experience improved the understanding of the patient and parents, enhanced consent and relaxed the parents before the surgery.
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Peer reviewed publications
Milano EG, Pajaziti E, Schievano S, Cook A, Capelli C. P369 Patient specific virtual reality for education in congenital heart disease. European Heart Journal-Cardiovascular Imaging. 2020 Jan 1;21(Supplement_1):jez319-218.
Pajaziti E, Schievano S, Sauvage E, Cook A, Capelli C. Investigating the feasibility of virtual reality (VR) for teaching cardiac morphology. Electronics. 2021 Aug 6;10(16):1889.
Milano EG, Kostolny M, Pajaziti E, Marek J, Regan W, Caputo M, Luciani GB, Mortensen KH, Cook AC, Schievano S, Capelli C. Enhanced 3D visualization for planning biventricular repair of double outlet right ventricle: a pilot study on the advantages of virtual reality. European Heart Journal-Digital Health. 2021 Dec 1;2(4):667-75.
Pajaziti E, Milano EG, Schievano S, Cook A, Capelli C. Investigating the Feasibility of Virtual Reality for Teaching on Congenital Heart Disease. European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. 2022 Feb 1;63(2):e42.
Vandermolen S, Ricci F, Chahal CA, Capelli C, Barakat K, Fedorowski A, Westwood M, Patel RS, Petersen SE, Gallina S, Pugliese F. ‘The digital cardiologist’: How technology is changing the paradigm of cardiology training. Current Problems in Cardiology. 2022 Sep 11:101394.
Belitsis G, Pajaziti E, Schievano S, Capelli C, Cook A, Kostolny M. Use of virtual reality in complex double outlet right ventricle cases. Multimedia Manual of Cardiothoracic Surgery: MMCTS. 2022 Dec 12;2022.
Participation to Conferences
2020
24-28th Aug 2020. “Accelerating the translation of patient-specific modelling in clinics for procedural planning and teaching: a Virtual Reality (VR) approach”. VPH 2020 Paris, France (online). Poster
2021
8th Apr 2021. “Translating computational modelling to clinics: opportunities and challenges in the field of congenital heart diseases”. BMC BAMC Glasgow 2021 - Progress and Trends in Mathematical Modelling of Cardiac Function. Oral
May 25-27, 2021. “Virtual reality for surgical planning, training and patient engagement in the field of congenital heart disease: a single centre experience.” 54th Annual Meeting of the AEPC. Oral
2022
6-9 September 2022. “Virtual Reality for Teaching and Treating Congenital Heart Disease” VPH2022 Porto (Portugal). Oral
26th August 2022. “Virtual reality and robotics for complex cardiovascular procedures” ESC Congress 2022. Barcelona (Spain). Oral
February 2022. “VheaRts for training in Congenital heart diseases” iNUGSC 2022. London (UK) Oral and workshop
2023
February 2023. “VheaRts for training in Congenital heart diseases” iNUGSC 2022. Oral and workshop
26-29th April 2023. “Virtual reality and engineering simulations for nulls – An engineer talk to make it easy”. 54th Annual Meeting of the AEPC. Dublin (Ireland). Oral
17-18 June 2023. Virtual Reality in Coronary Diagnostics. XI Bulgarian Course on Coronary Physiology and Physiology of the non-coronary vessels. Sofia (Bulgaria). Oral
27th August – 1st September 2023 “Vhearts: A Single Centre Experience Indeveloping, Testing And Implementing A Novel Virtual Reality Application For Enhancing The Anatomical Understanding Of Congenital Heart Diseases.” Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery. Washington (USA). Poster
27th August – 1st September 2023 “The Least Bad Option: Comparison Of Computed Tomography, 3-dimensional Reconstruction, And Virtual Reality For The Assessment Of Cardiac Injury And The Need For Peripheral Bypass In Redo Pediatric Cardiac Surgery” Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery. Washington (USA). Poster
20-22 September 2023. “VheaRts, unveiling lessons learned and future opportunities from a VR experience that enhances clinical planning and training in congenital diseases” ShiftMedical 2023. Heidelberg (Germany). Oral
Media
2020
Portraits of Sustainability Pioneers: Dassault Systèmes presents Claudio Capelli of GOSH
Interviews VheaRts – VR revolutionising traditional heart surgery
2022
Virtual reality in the operating room – BBC World Service ‘Tech Tent’
Conjoined twins separated with the help of virtual reality
VR training helped separate conjoined twins
Surgeons use vr headsets to separate conjoined twins
Virtual reality helps doctors separate twins joined at the brain
Virtual reality helps separate conjoined twins with fused brains
Surgeons use virtual reality techniques to separate conjoined twins