A study by the Institute of Supplementary Health Studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (IESS-UFMG) showed that, of the 19.4 million people treated in hospitals in Brazil, 1.3 million suffer negligence or imprudence during medical treatment every year. There are almost 55 thousand deaths per year in the country, the equivalent of six per hour, due to medical errors.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), insufficient training of healthcare professionals is one of the causes of these errors. A Working Group (WG) of the Advanced Services RNP RD&I Program has developed a solution that aims to improve medical education and practice: Metahealth, the training platform created to prepare healthcare professionals through virtual reality simulation environments.

The solution allows doctors, students and healthcare institutions to enhance their clinical skills. It is an immersive hub where students and healthcare professionals have access to specific simulators for training and maintaining the skills necessary for competent professional practice. This way, they can make decisions in a controlled environment, without posing a risk to the health of real patients.

Metahealth also offers a virtual environment focused on adapting users to the use of virtual reality equipment, 3D interaction techniques, and assessing their ability to use this type of technology. A web interface allows preceptors to prepare training sessions and monitor student performance after training.

Preparatory stage for the real clinic 

According to the academic coordinator of the solution, Professor Luciana Nedel, Metahealth was created to be a tool that helps new doctors learn how to deal with patients, understand their pain by asking the right questions and performing the right exams, diagnose their problems and prescribe efficient treatments. "For trainers and educational institutions, it makes it easier to conduct training and monitor the performance of their students and employees. We do not intend for Metahealth to be a substitute for medical practice during learning, but rather for it to serve as a preparatory stage for interacting with real patients," he said. 

In partnership with the Hospital das Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), the first users were able to experience a pediatric clinical case on the OSCE station simulator. Watch: 

The platform was developed by a research group from the Institute of Informatics at the University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in partnership with the Hospital das Clínicas in Porto Alegre (RS) and the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) and is in the minimum viable product testing phase. A webinar will be held on May 14th at 3 pm to present the solution. More information here.