Hospital staff provide medical care for patients at a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ward, amid a surge in new cases that has forced Israel into a second nationwide lockdown, at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov), Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 21, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.

CTech – Israeli medical device company DecideVR has recently completed its virtual reality simulator for identifying decision-making errors in medical treatment in intensive care units (ICU). The platform was developed by Professor Alex Mintz, former head of the Computerized Decision Making Lab at Reichman University and Professor Nir Keren, a leading VR expert with experience working for NASA’s International Space Station, alongside input from senior medical doctors in Israel and the US.

The simulator detects and reviews errors and biases of medical doctors and interns, and provides a valuable feedback report to users in real-time, while an executive report is issued for managers. A beta version of the product is currently being piloted with medical professionals in the US. A study was conducted with a non-VR version of the platform in three hospitals in Switzerland, one in Canada, and a medical school in the US, with more than 100 doctors and interns across hospitals in Israel.

The results pointed to numerous critical human errors in ICU simulations that can be reduced using the DecideVR simulator. DecideVR will embark in the next few months on a roadshow to raise funds. It is pursuing collaboration agreements with other simulation producers, hospitals, and medical schools.

“DecideVR aims to be the most advanced simulator for ICU decisions. The platform currently focuses on cardiovascular ICU decisions where errors are intolerable, but DecideVR is also developing with the input of leading medical experts, simulations in variety of fields, such as oncology and neurology, and will offer a variety of scenarios in a multitude of specializations and sub-specialization in response to a growing need of hospitals, and medical schools, to significantly reduce human errors in intensive care units. Another version of the simulator is being developed for nurses,” said Mintz.