Wearing Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets, nurses train on evacuation procedures for the newborn intensive care unit in a virtual environment which has been rendered to match the hospital they work in down to the K-cups in the breakroom.

That is not a hypothetical scenario, but rather an ongoing research study at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, according to an article on the FacilitiesNet website. 

The study, funded by a federal grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, will have four evacuation scenarios, each getting progressively more complex. 

Sherry Farra, associate professor of nursing at Wright State University, is working in collaboration with the hospital’s clinical director of the newborn intensive care unit and researchers at Miami University, and says that while the study is ongoing and no measurable outcomes can be reported, early evidence suggests the VR training has similar benefits to in-person training, in terms of learning and retaining procedures.

Read the article.