The Lorraine Virtual Hospital (HVL) provides students with health and sports simulation equipment and tools. Responding to the challenge of "never for the first time on a patient", the HVL is run by the Collegium-Santé of the University of Lorraine, which brings together the faculties of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and sports sciences.
- 12 February 2019
Learning through simulation at the Lorraine Virtual Hospital allows students to achieve greater control over their actions by comparing themselves to numerous case studies. Health professionals can therefore focus more effectively on the patient, be attentive to their needs, and provide them with highly personalised care. This will, without a doubt, make more room for the ‘human touch’ in relationships with patients.
Opened in January 2018 on the site of the Nancy University Hospital, the HVL has already trained several thousand people. It has made it possible to create several university degrees and specific training courses, to develop two start-ups, and to employ about ten doctoral candidates.
The Lorraine Virtual Hospital offers simulation-based learning to many medical and paramedical health professionals in both hospital service and private practice. Learning through simulation at the Lorraine Virtual Hospital allows students to achieve greater control over their actions by looking at numerous case studies.
Health professionals can therefore focus more effectively on the patient, be attentive to their needs, and provide them with better support. This makes patient care relationships more humane.
The HVL brings together six structures: the CUESIM (University Centre for Training by Simulation), the CESU (Emergency Care Teaching Centre), the School of Surgery, Odontology, MeMoSim'S (Staps), and a hospital pharmacy for internal use. There will also be a care area with beds and a simulation platform for managing high infection risks.
Simulation has many advantages, namely that students and healthcare professionals can gain experience in automated activities in a stress-free and fun way. They are also able to develop technical and behavioural skills before approaching real patients. They can self-assess how they practice by being filmed and then debriefed, supported by the video, as well as through ‘serious games’ or virtual simulators.
They can be trained at their own pace, in a more independent manner and with greater safety, for example when handling toxic products. "They also learn to work better together, moving away from overly compartmentalised training.
“The aim is to decompartmentalise these professions (surgeons, doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, etc.). That way, the teams will get along better, be more efficient and know how to work together," explains Prof. Béatrice Faivre, Director of Collegium-Santé.
The Lorraine Virtual Hospital also makes it possible to develop new educational programmes. The first training courses started in 2016. "Over the course of 2016-2017, we trained between 1,000 and 1,500 people per year, mainly general practitioners, emergency physicians and surgeons. The objective is to reach a figure of 4,000 to 5,000 people per year,” states Prof. Béatrice Faivre.
Several UDs (university degrees) related to the virtual hospital are already open, with a total of thirteen UDs expected to be open for September 2019, nine of them from the start of the 2018 academic year. There are training courses that cover robotic surgery, digestive surgery, gynaecology, cardiac surgery, dental surgery, fall risk, oncology pharmacy, etc. Also on the agenda are a minimum of sixteen "specific training courses". These are short courses – some of which lead to a diploma – that are part of CPD (Continuing Professional Development).
At an economic level, two start-ups have launched in connection with the simulation, one in robotics and the other in nanotechnology. About ten doctoral students are employed by the University of Lorraine as part of this ERDF project, and a number of fixed-term contracts have been created for administrative functions.
The HVL is also involved in medical research activities, research and development (expertise in new medical devices), and educational research (the development of new simulation tools).
In addition to Collegium-Santé, three organisations support the HVL: the University of Lorraine, the CHRU and the Lorraine Institute of Cancer Research. The HVL also collaborates with other research hubs and industrial partners.
Total investment and EU funding
The Lorraine Virtual Hospital project: "never for the first time on a patient" was the recipient of a total investment of EUR 8,855,014. The European Regional Development Fund contributed EUR 4,084,011 under the ERDF/ESF operational programme for the region of Lorraine and Vosges for the 2014-2020 programming period.