Overview

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This course is designed to teach you about Extended Reality (XR) and how it's used in healthcare education and clinical practice. Using lessons from experts in the field and different case studies, this course shows you how to use this innovative technology in a way that creates sustainable, accessible real-world applications. The course considers Extended Reality (XR) from a number of perspectives. First of all, you will learn about the hardware and software considerations, then focus on education structures and frameworks and how Extended Reality is applied appropriately within this context. The final two weeks demonstrate how XR has been applied in real-world clinical practice and how you can best make use of the technology by understanding the impact of interdisciplinary expertise in the field. Overall, this course will help you to advance your use of Extended Reality, whatever your background, in clinical training and technologically-enhanced healthcare education contexts. You will also have the optional pathway of developing a business case alongside fellow learners. The business case can be the first step in promoting your XR idea or project to different stakeholders.

Syllabus

Getting Started with Extended Reality (XR)

This week you will explore the fundamentals of Extended Reality and simulation. The important distinctions between Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality will be highlighted. By the end of the week, you will be better placed to consider various XR devices based on specifications and capabilities and how these will potentially support your use of the technology within healthcare.

XR Design for Healthcare Education

Using Extended Reality to enhance learning experience can be achieved by exploring educational considerations and the impact of XR on information retention, cognitive load, inclusion, diversity and accessibility. You may not have formal training in education, however, what is important is to recognise your strengths and limitations. By studying this week’s materials, you will identify the importance of including expert educationalists in your team. This knowledge will help build your business case. Important questions to ask are: What is the problem you are trying to solve or improve? Who are your users and what are their needs? How does technology enhance their learning experience?

XR Design for Clinical Practice

This week you will explore how Extended Reality can be used in clinical practice. Focus on the lessons learnt by the experts as they discuss various challenges and successes of using XR. From these lessons identify how you will shape your use of XR and potentially integrate these ideas into your business case.

Planning the Application of XR

With your new understanding of Extended Reality in healthcare, it is important to explore the real world translation of this innovation. A business case helps provide rationale for implementing a project or new programme effectively. It is a strong approach to justifying application of Extended Reality to medical education or clinical practice. This week focuses on practical concepts and developmental steps. Expert contributors will contribute different 'lessons learnt' from their XR experience and will give succinct descriptions of the tools/software and phases used in the process of building a XR development. This last week of the course ends with a non-assessed business case exercise and leads to the final graded quiz.