Three principles for the progress of immersive technologies in healthcare training and education

Mathew, Ryan K.; Mushtaq, Faisal

The emergence of a new generation of ‘immersive technologies’ (eg, augmented and virtual reality) presents an opportunity to overcome existing weaknesses and radically transform the healthcare education landscape.1 While digital simulations have been available for decades, recent large-scale investments coupled with breakthroughs in low-cost computing and artificial intelligence make this feel like a watershed moment for immersive simulation technologies. To maximise the potential of immersive technologies, we must answer a number of critical questions: (1) Which learning tool, immersive or otherwise, is best suited to achieve the learning outcome? (2) Which immersive experiences have been shown to improve outcomes in high-quality research? (3) How do we design and implement immersive technologies to achieve specific learning objectives? (4) Why do immersive systems accelerate the learning of specific outcomes when compared with other tools? [...]we need to advance our theoretical understanding of the sensory processes underlying learning in parallel with technology development and implementation. Principle 2: implementation must go hand-in-hand with rigorous evaluation Most of today’s immersive systems have a degree of face validity (ie, they present relatively realistic simulations of the real-world task), but this does not necessarily translate to learning.