Indian start-up MediSim VR has developed a virtual-reality training programme for medical and nursing students that offers authentic simulations of real-life medical procedures. The programme has already been established in VR labs in medical and nursing schools, with over 2,000 students enrolled. The company hopes to crack the medical education markets of the US, UK and Australia.
Virtual reality (VR) is gradually finding its way into many different industries, with healthcare being one of the sectors that stands to benefit the most. In India, startups like MediSim VR are paving the way for VR-based medical education. These young entrepreneurs have created a virtual-reality training program for medical and nursing students that offers them a highly authentic simulation of real-life medical procedures, giving them the opportunity to practice and hone their skills in a safe environment.
MediSim VR, a startup incubated by the Indian Institute of Technology Research Park, has emerged as a serious player in the healthcare industry. The five-year-old firm has already set up VR labs in medical and nursing schools, with over 2,000 students currently enrolled in the program. Recently, the company roped in Harvard Medical School’s simulation guru, Gianluca De Novi, as an adviser and tied up with Hartford HealthCare Corp.’s Center for Education, Simulation, and Innovation (CESI), with the goal of cracking large and lucrative medical education markets such as the US, UK, and Australia.
India’s software industry has been focused on providing outsourced services at a fraction of the cost of code-writing in the West. However, with the capabilities of Indian software engineers now reaching a new phase of sophistication, it is time for Indian entrepreneurs to start creating niche software products and taking them global. With the help of VR, medical and nursing students can learn complex surgical procedures in a safe and simulated environment without needing access to expensive instructor resources or relying solely on the use of traditional mannequins.
MediSim VR’s founders, Jeno Manickam Durairaj, Sabarish Chandrasekaran, and Adith Chinnaswami, all come from diverse backgrounds. Durairaj comes from the world of computer games, while Chandrasekaran is an engineer and MBA. Chinnaswami is a trained laparoscopic surgeon. Together, they decided that rather than end up as a software services firm, they should build a product that would specialize in medical education.
Initially, MediSim VR focused on surgical procedures, but the company soon realized that training hospital staff in everything that goes on inside or outside the operating theater is an even bigger market. That’s when they landed at the Healthcare Technology Innovation Center at IIT Madras. Medical schools in India are receptive to the idea of using VR labs because they simply host the labs free of charge. MediSim bills Indian students an affordable annual license fee of about $300 to use its stations, which cost $12,000 apiece to build.
With three patents in medical simulation, MediSim VR is in a strong position to capture a share of the $3.8 billion-a-year global VR-based health-care training market. The company expects the market to grow eightfold by 2030, with the market leader being San Francisco-based Osso VR.
Globally, every seventh doctor in the US is of Indian origin, and nurses from Kerala have a long tradition of tending to patients in hospitals around the world, especially in the Persian Gulf. Now, it’s the turn of Indian-made medical software to go global, armed with training data on thousands of students in the home market. Indian medical education follows the UK system, but adjusting training modules to American standards won’t be too hard. The catheter is the same everywhere, even though what’s known as a urobag in India is called a closed-circuit bag in America. This is hardly a bridge too far.
In conclusion, VR-based healthcare training is still in its early stages, but with the help of startups like MediSim VR, the future of medical education is set to change for the better. by using VR.
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