An Immersive Haptic-enabled Training Simulation for Paramedics

This paper describes the integration of haptics support into a virtual reality training simulation aimed at skills retention for paramedics. We focus on a chest decompression, a life-saving invasive procedure used for trauma-associated cardiopulmonary resuscitation (and other causes) that every emergency physician needs to master. It is not regularly performed by a paramedic, however, and therefore skills maintenance is a challenge. In our simulation, a virtual Russell PneumoFix-8 device is used to carry out the procedure and it is controlled with the 3D Systems Touch grounded force feedback device. We describe how this device has been integrated into an immersive virtual environment so that it or any other tool can be used at any location in the scene. Quantitative data has been obtained from an evaluation exercise carried out with 21 paramedics. The majority of these participants reported a good feeling of presence, according to the Spatial Presence Experience Scale. They indicated strongly that the use of haptic-enabled simulators that include the kind of interaction techniques implemented in our simulator would be beneficial for training and skills retention. The realism of using the simulator at a 1 to 1 scale was also highly scored. A System Usability Scale was also calculated and the results show that the simulator is close to an acceptable standard for usability but more work is needed. We will address this in future work.