Kauka replicates a operating room of the Hospital Universitario Donostia for the training of the staff sanitary

The start-up from Guipuzcoa Kauka has replicated in a virtual way a operating room of the Donostia University Hospital with the goal to collaborate with the training of the Osakidetza health staff . The student of Tecnun Jaime Baez has analyzed the learning achieved by the 55 nurses of the Hospital who have participated in the study. Specifically, as explained by the doctor specializing in thoracic surgery at the Hospital Universitario Donostia, Jon Zabaleta, the handling of medical instruments in thoracic surgery has been evaluated with the idea of implementing this training technique for another subject of surgeries in the future: "The immersive experience created by this technology is total and the results have been very positive", emphasized Zabaleta.

It should be noted that the collaboration between Kauka, the Hospital Universitario Donostia and Tecnun, the School of Engineering of the University of Navarra, arose as a result of COVID-19, due to the "lack of resources" and the "need for training" of the Osakidetza healthcare staff , as expressed by Tánit Esnal, CEO of Kauka. "These technologies create simulations of healthcare procedures so that, in a totally safe environment, processes can be learned or remembered without putting patient safety at risk."

The data recorded by the student Jaime Baez, such as the issue of tasks performed, the confidence achieved, the time employee in the handling of the instruments or the issue of errors made, show significant differences in the nurses who did this training module compared to those who did not. In addition, Baez recognizes that "one of the requirements was that none of them had experience in the handling of instruments in this thoracic surgery subject to see if they could really learn or not". For his part, Jon Zabaleta, who is also a professor at Degree in Biomedical Engineering at Tecnun, says that "these first results encourage us to continue exploring the uses and utilities of virtual reality".

Transfer of knowledge

On the other hand, the Full Professor of the department of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences of Tecnun Javier Aldazábal highlights the impact that this subject of collaborations have on the student body: "This same tool has been used by our master students and they are learning that the field of virtual reality has a clear didactic vocation and that data can be extracted to corroborate the improvements that these technologies imply", he said. Specifically, the students have used the tool developed by Kauka assisting in a lung operation in a operating room of the Hospital Universitario Donostia. "Under normal conditions none of them would be able to do it, but with financial aid virtual reality they have been able to familiarize themselves with the instruments and the surgical procedures in a completely safe way," the professor acknowledged. "The students have already seen how the technology works and in the future they will be able to detect possible fields of application for it.

It should be noted that the simulation glasses used for the study were donated by goal to Tecnun last year, thus enabling the company to use a new teaching methodology in virtual reality.