A virtual reality blood transfusion training programme that could help save lives has been created by a Manchester Metropolitan doctoral student.
Clinical scientist Laura Eastwood is leading a project in NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) on the use of virtual reality (VR) to train biomedical scientists as part of her doctorate programme.
The app, which is the first of its kind, is designed to allow a biomedical scientist to enter a simulated laboratory and be taught how to perform a crossmatch for a blood transfusion, which is the process whereby a donated red cell unit is selected for a patient and tested to determine if it is suitable. The app uses three different patient cases to illustrate a range of different clinical scenarios.
Blood transfusions involve giving a patient blood from someone else. They are carried out for a wide range of reasons, including sickle cell anaemia, cancer treatment and surgery.
There are eight main blood groups, and care must be taken to ensure the correct blood group is given to the patient, as giving a patient the incorrect blood group is potentially fatal.
The VR app, developed with Make Real Ltd, allows the scientist to enter a virtual laboratory where they perform a crossmatch test on a sample of a patient’s blood by choosing units of blood from a selection in a blood stocks fridge.
They then take a sample of the unit and test against plasma from the patient’s blood sample to determine if the unit is compatible. The scientist will meet the patient, learning why the blood transfusion is important for them, as well as the impact of any right or wrong decisions. The handset realistically recreates the sense of holding items such as patient blood samples and pipettes.
The initial pilot project was run at Manchester Metropolitan’s School of Digital Arts (SODA), and the app has now been used approximately 50 hospitals and NHS blood centres across England and Wales as part of the research project.
The NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) – Crossmatching project was recently selected as a finalist at the Eighth International XR awards for XR Healthcare Solution of the Year, the largest global virtual reality and augmented reality awards, supported by Google and Meta. The app won an XR accolade, with the expert evaluation by the judges recognising that the app excelled in the healthcare category and stood out in the specialised area of medical procedure training.
Laura, who is undertaking a professional doctorate (DClinSci) in the Department of Life Sciences as part of the Higher Specialist Scientific Training (HSST) programme to become a Consultant Clinical Scientist, said: “Although a lot of people may not be familiar with biomedical scientists, they have a really important role in healthcare – if you’ve ever had a blood test, biopsy, or a blood transfusion, a biomedical scientist will have helped you.
“To make sure patients get the best service we need to make sure training is effective and easy to deliver, especially when working in challenging healthcare environments. The study has shown that VR has the potential to be an excellent training tool and we’ve been really pleased to have engagement from Manchester Metropolitan and hospitals across England and Wales.”
Julie Staves, Deputy Chair of the British Blood Transfusion Society and Transfusion Laboratory manager at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals said: “This is a novel environment for blood transfusion scientists to learn and to be trained.
“It’s a great opportunity for our biomedical scientists to learn in a very safe environment away from blood products and patients. It gets them very familiar with the process and speeds up their training when they move on to providing blood products for patients.”
