London-based FundamentalVR, a digital health company that uses virtual reality (VR) to help train surgeons, today announced the expansion of its educational platform Fundamental Surgery.

Its new education modality @HomeVR brings educational simulations, accredited by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons, to standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus.    

To use @HomeVR, users download simulations to their standalone VR headset and log in with their Fundamental Surgery account details. The procedures available are being phased in for existing customers starting with total hip arthroplasty (anterior approach). 

WHY IT MATTERS

The launch expands on the capabilities of the firm’s HapticVR educational surgical simulation platform, which combines VR with the sense-of-touch to enable surgeons to experience the same sights, sounds and feelings they would in a real procedure. This allows them to hone and rehearse skills in a safe and measurable environment. 

It fuses cutaneous (tactile vibration) and kinesthetics (force feedback and position) haptic technologies in a single platform, optimised for different stages of the learning process. 

Offering different training modalities that have a single user view and one consolidated data record can provide flexibility in training for surgeons and residents, as well as scalability and portability. 

FundamentalVR also features a data dashboard which tracks hundreds of data points. Every user interaction is measured and recorded to provide real-time feedback within a single display. This data provides performance insights, leading to actionable learnings. 

THE LARGER CONTEXT 

Fundamental Surgery is currently used at medical institutions around the world, including Sana in Germany and University College Hospital London and St George’s Hospital in the UK.

The company closed a $5.67 million Series A round in October last year, led by Downing Ventures, with participation from Tern PLC, Epic Private Equity and Brighteye Ventures.

Other digital companies in the surgical training space include Osso VR, which is being used by the UK’s Newcastle Surgical Training Centre, Oxford Medical Stimulation (OMS) which is being used at Oxford University and British startup Touch Surgery, which reportedly borrowed $70 million earlier this year to fund its training augmented reality technology for doctors.

ON THE RECORD

Richard Vincent, CEO, and cofounder of FundamentalVR, said: "Leveraging low-cost hardware, our multimodal platform allows medical institutions to take advantage of the proven benefits of surgical simulations at scale, and in ways that ensure the consistency of training delivery, and effectiveness of their curriculums. The @HomeVR modality provides a highly mobile and cost-effective way to acquire the knowledge and understanding of the technical skills required to carry out surgical procedures.”