A Medical Device Daily

SimQuest (Silver Spring, Maryland) a developer of technology-assisted education and training, has received grants to develop components of a surgical simulator for training in open access procedures awarded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB; Bethesda, Maryland) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; Gaithersburg, Maryland) and the National Science Foundation (NSF; Arlington, Virginia).

The outcome of each grant will be independent yet will provide complementary advances in instruction and assessment in open access surgery. These advances in simulating open procedures require more complex technology than many of the medical simulators used today by medical schools and hospitals that focus primarily on minimally invasive procedures.

When integrated as a whole, the simulator SimQuest is developing will incorporate medical content, physics-based surgical environment simulation software, force-feedback robotics and a stereoscopic screen to create an accurate, experiential learning environment that will replicate the look and feel of operating on an actual patient. This surgical simulator will meet the needs of healthcare professionals who must currently develop and sustain their surgical skills using patients, cadavers, animals or rudimentary physical surrogate training methods.