Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence: Game Changers in The Health Sector

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Caro Bauer

Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence can take the training of staff in hospitals to the next level. You wonder how? In this blog post we will show which amazing possibilities there are using those innovative technologies in the health sector with a current project in this field.

Virtual environments for training hospital staff

Virtual Reality and Artificial intelligence are not just two buzz words in the media, but can really make a difference to people’s lives. The Dutch company The Simulation Crew started a project to bring these two innovative fields together in the health sector. The Simulation Crew develops virtual training simulations for strong and effective learning. They develop a virtual environment to train interns and new employees at a hospital in the Netherlands.

A safe environment to train for the real work

The idea behind it is that the staff engages with non-playable-characters (NPCs) without the risk of making mistakes. In the real world those mistakes could be critical due to the fact that patients at the clinic are in a sensitive emotional state because of their condition. So, the virtual environment offers the new employees a safe area for learning.

The environment basically looks like a video or computer game. The user plays the main character and interacts with patients in a hospital, which are NPCs. These virtual characters are equipped with entertAIn play to simulate the emotional reaction of real-life patients. They perceive the emotion of the player from his or her voice through audio AI.

The training application is designed in a way, that helps the new employees to learn how they react in a way that matches the sensitive state their patients are in. Therefore, the application focuses mainly on emotions like anger and nervousness, which could arise in the patients, if the staff does not treat them emphatically enough.

Natural and immersive interactions with Emotion Detection in Virtual Reality

The goal of the project is to make the application as natural and immersive as possible so that the staff and thus the hospital profits as much as possible from it. So far, there is great progress and the application will soon be used for all new employees in the hospital. Eric Jutten, CEO of The Simulation Crew says:

“A future where our interactions with computers and virtual characters are emotionless was not an option for us. So, we were glad to find audEERING and use their entertAIn solution for emotion AI in our Virtual Reality product. It helped us add a new layer of emotional interaction to our scenarios in VR.”