ARuVR announce world-first EdTech partnership with UCL Hospital to develop XR use in medical training

• Extended Reality (XR) will prove an important tool in medical training for surgery, says thought-leader in the medical training industry at exclusive BT Tower event

25 May 2022 – London, UK: ARuVR, the Virtual and Augmented Reality learning business, will announce a partnership at an exclusive event for the XR community with a key advocate of XR and EdTech to revolutionise medical training. For the partnership, Professor Manish Chand, UCL Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, will trial ARuVR’s technology to train medical students. BT, which is part of ARuVR’s extensive international client roster alongside Coca-Cola, Rio Tinto, PwC and NEOM, will host the invitation-only event at the grade II-listed BT Tower.

As part of the trial, Professor Chand will be using the technology to teach medical students by displaying a view of the operating room in training sessions on ARuVR’s software. Professor Chand will use the software to live-stream these sessions to students, enabling better immersion of the material and improving knowledge retention. At the event, Professor Chand will discuss how XR technology has potential to grow as a tool in medical learning, and which could also be used in clinical practice and the metaverse.

Professor Manish Chand, UCL Hospital, said: “There is huge potential for medical education to truly benefit from customisable immersive VR technology. VR provides an opportunity for students and mentees to immerse themselves in a learning environment not limited by geographical boundaries. ARuVR’s platform and user experience are excellent, and perfectly demonstrate the capabilities of the technologies in the medical learning space.”

The Healthcare and Pharmaceutical sectors have led in adopting these technologies due to the clear benefits they provide. Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, for example, has used VR simulations to gain an understanding of the skills needed to develop for real-life situations. The benefits in medical training have proven clear elsewhere, with a recent study showing that VR training can improve patient outcomes by 83%, as shown during a hip arthroscopy in a randomised controlled trial.

Additionally, ARuVR and HTC Vive, the virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation, have announced a partnership with the HTC VIVE Independent Software Vendors (ISV) Programme, accelerating the adoption of ARuVR’s innovative XR training solutions and marking the beginning of a key British tech partnership in the learning technology space.

Frank Furnari, CEO & Founder of ARuVR said: ‘We are delighted to be partnering with Professor Chand and UCL Hospital for this collaboration, as XR is a tool with huge potential in the medical learning space. We look forward to seeing our technology improve medical training, and we particularly believe there are lasting opportunities across the NHS. Our partnership with HTC Vive also marks a great step in expanding our learning technology to the XR development community. It was a pleasure to make these announcements with some of the brightest minds in XR.’

Darren Lewis, Head of Innovation at BT said: ‘We are very pleased to be working with ARuVR, and continuing our relationship. It’s exciting to hear from the speakers of the event on XR training, which will continue to play an important role into the future.’

Keith Russell, Head of B2B Sales EMEA at HTC-Vive said: “We are excited to have ARuVR join our Vive Business ISV programme, as immersive learning continues to break down barriers and open new worlds for people. It’s great to be working closely with ARuVR for premium VR solutions for corporate learning, sales and marketing”.