KENT, Ohio — Inside a blank white room, students like Jon Henrie immerse themselves and practice on patients with the help of VR goggles.
"Mr. Wilson, are you allergic to anything?" Henrie asked the virtual patient through his VR headset.
Starting this past fall, Kent State University's School of Nursing is using artificial intelligence and virtual reality to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world patient care, giving students hands-on experience.
"I think this is a great way to get more hands-on patient care without worrying about the liability," Henrie chuckled.
In a blank white room that transforms into a virtual patient room, nursing student Jon Henrie practices administering medication to a digital patient who responds to his questions and follows his instructions.
Henrie, an Army medic, is one of almost 30 students at Kent State experimenting with this new training technology that replaces traditional mannequins with responsive virtual patients.
The program, funded by a federal grant, focuses on helping licensed practice nurses advance their careers and become registered nurses.
Students can practice in various scenarios, including hospital rooms, home care settings, and even triaging multiple patients simultaneously.
"It's very different because I didn't play video games growing up," said nursing student Kaitlin Wilkins.
Dr. Janet Reed, assistant professor of nursing at Kent State, sees the technology as essential for preparing nurses to handle unexpected situations.
"What VR can help with is really individualized student practice, and then we integrate AI to get a lot of individualized feedback on how students learn," Reed said.
Reed explained how she's able to tailor the patients to act a certain way, have specific characteristics and emotions and challenge students to see their blind spots and where they can improve. Additionally, AI is used after a training session to detail and analyze the interactions and what happened, as well as offer suggestions for improvement.
"I can change the patient and make it have certain attributes or know certain things about themselves or have them prompt certain things," Reed said.
The innovation comes at a critical time for the nursing profession.
According to a report published by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in November 2022, federal authorities projected a shortage of 78,610 full-time RNs in 2025 and a shortage of 63,720 full-time RNs by 2030.
"We have a nursing shortage," Dr. Reed added. "Nursing is hard, and we have a lot of burnout in the profession. We have students who aren't always prepared for that level of responsibility. Hopefully, with increased capacity, this will allow us to extend what we're already doing in the regular simulation lab, in the classroom and clinical settings and give students more clinical opportunities."
The results have been promising enough that Kent State is already looking at expanding its VR program to expose more students to the technology.
"We're really able to do things we've never been able to do before, and it's very exciting," Reed said.
Clay LePard is the Ashtabula, Geauga and Portage counties reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on X @ClayLePard, on Facebook ClayLePardTV or email him at Clay.LePard@wews.com.
