GHA & 8chili Inc. launch healthcare training & education platform in the Metaverse

Bengaluru/New Delhi: Global Healthcare Academy (GHA), India’s first Healthcare EdTech academy, a pioneer in value-added healthcare training solutions has entered into a strategic partnership with leading California-based tech startup, 8chili to bring healthcare training and medical education to the Metaverse.

The collaboration has already published 200+ hours of virtual reality (VR) content across multiple subspecialties including Dentistry, Oral and Maxillofacial surgery, Orthopedics, Skull base, Spine, Neurology, ENT, Paramedics, Nursing, and Oncology. GHA will deliver these immersive VR training courses to more than 20,000 healthcare professionals across the globe in 2022 and beyond, making it one of the world’s largest VR-based training deployments. Industry estimates deem metaverse to be a Trillion-dollar opportunity, and we reckon it will grow at a faster pace that what is believed, given its inherently disruptive innovation.

“Healthcare professionals seek high-quality training content on a day-to-day basis to provide value-based care to their patients. However, the healthcare system, burdened with duty hours and constrained by cost-prohibitive hands-on training solutions, falls short of ensuring sustainable patient outcomes. GHA is pioneering the immersive learning initiative aimed at upskilling healthcare practitioners in a seamless manner without impacting their clinical priorities.”, says Dr. B S Ajaikumar, Executive Chairman, HC, and Chairman, GHA.

“One of the biggest challenges faced by fellows and residents is hands on training for skill acquisition. There are not many cadavers available or other effective ways to train and perform like an expert surgeon. 8chili’s VR-based Imitation learning solves this problem by helping residents re-live the surgery and learn by mimicking the actions of the surgeon with virtual tools and haptic feedback. Moreover, this can be repeated as many times as possible in the Metaverse”, says Dr. Girish Rao, Executive Director, Global Dental Academy.

“The biggest challenge faced by Virtual Reality simulators is the “VR Content”. 8chili HintVR™ platform enables easy and lightning-fast 3D immersive content creation solving the content problem helping companies to enter the metaverse. 8chili and the GHA team have successfully VR’ized more than 200+ hours of content over 10 different sub-specialties which otherwise would have taken years of efforts”, says Aravind Upadhyaya, Founder and CEO, 8chili

Virtual reality (VR) technology is emerging as a powerful tool in medical training, with several studies endorsing its phenomenal effectiveness in training / skill mastery. Simulation has long been integral to medical education as it involves techniques that imitate pre-hospital patient situations and facilitate learning and development of psychomotor skills to enhance procedural skills and critical thinking for effecting better patient outcomes. Countries like the US, UK, and China are at the forefront of Metaverse-based training. Stanford University recently launched an entire class taught in VR.

The pandemic has ushered in a paradigm shift in the Education industry with hybrid delivery (virtual + physical) models gaining preference over purely virtual models. GHA is leading the discussions around Metaverse and healthcare education / training by involving policy makers, healthcare authorities and councils at the Healthcare Metaverse Summit, Bengaluru on Feb 25-26, 2022.