Dr. Nicole Harder at the RadyVerse launch at Bannatyne campus in March 2024.
RadyVerse team wins national award for simulation-based learning
A University of Manitoba initiative to expand the use of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence in health-care education won a national award from Simulation Canada, a non-profit organization for the advancement of simulation-based learning in health care.
The College of Nursing at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences has been using VR in its bachelor of nursing program since Fall 2022. The RadyVerse, which was launched in March 2024, is expanding this technology across the faculty’s colleges of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and rehabilitation sciences.
The RadyVerse team, led by Dr. Nicole Harder, associate dean, undergraduate programs and professor in the College of Nursing, and Mindermar Professor in Human Simulation, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, won the SIM Innovator Award at a recent ceremony.
“It’s great to be acknowledged for all the work that we’ve been doing. It highlights that work to a more national level and makes it more visible beyond Manitoba,” Harder said.
Other team members include Kimberly Workum, a senior instructor in the College of Nursing and Jeanne San Miguel, coordinator at the college’s clinical competence assessment centre.
Since its inception, the RadyVerse has quickly expanded its reach beyond UM. Notably, it is being explored as a component of the Family Medicine Program in rural Manitoba, providing rural health-care teams with VR-based training, and with CancerCare Manitoba.
Virtual reality is also used in international competency assessments for nursing, evaluating skills remotely from locations as distant as the Philippines.
“What is truly remarkable about the RadyVerse is its potential to disrupt traditional education models by extending beyond the boundaries of the university itself. It has been instrumental in addressing key health-care challenges, such as providing rural healthcare teams with access to high-quality, VR-based education in family medicine,” said Dr. Donna Martin, associate dean, graduate programs at the College of Nursing.
Harder said the team has also hosted tours for groups from across Canada and the United States.
“It’s not just the technology. I mean people can go anywhere and get it, it’s commercially available, but what they really want is to have conversations with us to find out how are we able to roll this out in such a big way.”
Harder also received an individual award, the SIM Citizenship Award, which honours those who have made an outstanding impact on building the simulation community through education, advocacy and other endeavours.
In 2019, Harder became the first College of Nursing faculty member to hold the Mindermar professor position since it was established in 2009. Earlier this year, her position was renewed for five years.
Both awards were presented at Simulation Canada’s 2024 SIM Expo in Banff, Alta. on November 25.