Tuttlingen – “Virtual reality will be the future of training and further education,” says Prof. Dr. Miriam Rüsseler – and the “Virtual Room of Error” is a milestone on this path: In her keynote speech at the 15th Innovation Forum Medical Technology, the head of the interdisciplinary simulation center at the Goethe University Frankfurt opens up a new look at teaching in particular and the error culture in general.
It can be an empty disinfectant dispenser. Or an alarm bell lying on the floor. Anyone who enters the room automatically stands at attention. Somewhere in the general ward, in the emergency room, in the operating room or in the intensive care unit, things are not as they should be. Sometimes more obvious, sometimes more hidden, a meticulous search for abnormalities begins. And at some point you take off the VR glasses again. The “Virtual Room of Error” is likely to be a unique facility in the German hospital landscape. “It’s about training situational awareness,” explains Prof. Dr. Miriam Rüsseler. About detecting errors in the digital environment before they can endanger staff and patients in the real environment. She has headed the interdisciplinary simulation center since 2016. What began analogously with rooms, devices, beds and dolls can now be found entirely in the virtual universe - which, however, is no less real than the original: “The individual rooms have been digitized with a 3D scanner,” reports Miriam Rüsseler. It took nine months to program the first “twin”.
Almost every department at the university hospital has now gone through the “Virtual Room of Error”. Thanks to technology, this is possible anywhere and at any time. Miriam Rüsseler discovered that “different professional groups perceive things very differently.” Which is not a problem, because the error culture is fundamentally different here. For example, if 80 percent of the discrepancies are discovered, there is no reprimand because 20 percent are missing. On the contrary, there is high praise for what has been achieved. The most successful teams are published in-house - in the spirit of “gamification” this is an incentive for others. Miriam Rüsseler laughs that she has never had to do any convincing.
The leader has many ideas for the “Virtual Room of Error” in mind. This is where the medical technology industry comes into play: as a partner to further develop the rooms as a whole - and thus possibly also their own products. It would be conceivable to allow clinical staff to practice using new equipment in a protected environment. Or to evaluate how the background noise affects the perception of errors and to design a beneficial acoustic profile. In the longer term, the project could move in the direction of “trial before error”. Miriam Rüsseler is open to such thoughts. “I’m looking forward to the exchange,” she says, looking forward to the forum day in Tuttlingen, “to exciting lectures and exciting discussions” – so that mistakes are given space together in a positive sense.
The keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Miriam Rüsseler “Virtual Room of Error – Identifying Errors and Saving Patients” begins at 3:00 p.m. in the Great Hall.
Further information about the 15th Innovation Forum Medical Technology can be found at this link.
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