Exonicus, together with US Madigan Army Medical Center, worked on creating a virtual-reality simulator that would help military medical personnel adapt to their surroundings before their arrival at deployment locations.
The approach behind this idea comes from British medical teams that, before arrival at in-theater ROLE III facilities, train at identical medical environments. The main purpose of the simulator created in this project is to accurately replicate the environment that the medical personnel will operate upon deployment.
Due to advancements of virtual-reality software, simulators hold great promise in helping medical personnel prepare for new treatment environments, as well as gathering metrics and providing real-time feedback to medical personnel.
Another necessity for the simulator was to create a capability to allow instructor-less use. For the simulator to have additional use, medical personnel should be able to use it independently. Previous research had concentrated on creating simulations and models that, despite accurate recreations, still require instructor input.
The main benefits of using the simulation before deployment is for increasing familiarity with the working environments for medical teams, as well as allowing medical personnel to improve their critical decision-making capabilities.
During the project, Exonicus and Madigan Army Medical Center has created currently the only fully autonomous trauma simulator that also offers scoring feedback to users.