Virti a virtual and augmented reality company specialising in medical training has been selected to join the NHS Innovation Accelerator programme.
The platform uses virtual and augmented reality combined with artificial intelligence to transport users into realistic, hard-to-access environments and safely assesses them under pressure to reduce anxiety and improve human performance.
Virti was founded by trauma and orthopaedic surgeon Dr Alexander Young and only launched 12 months ago but in that short space of time have gained large enterprise customers in the UK and US.
Now entering its fourth year, the NHS’ National Innovation Accelerator programme is designed to scale the top evidence-based health solutions throughout the National Health Service (NHS) and is delivered in partnership with England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). Since it launched in July 2015, the NIA has supported the uptake and spread of 37 high-impact, evidence-based innovations across more than 1,700 NHS sites.
Dr Alexander Young, CEO/Founder Virti, said: “It is a huge honour to be selected onto the NHS’ NIA programme and a testament to our ongoing work with the UK’s National Health Service. We are delighted to be the first Virtual and Augmented Reality company selected onto the NIA and proud that our evidence-based VR/AR training platform will now be scaled to further hospitals, physicians and patients through the NIA. We are particularly excited to help deliver the NHS’ recently published ‘Health and Care Workforce Strategy to 2027’ and further demonstrate the positive impacts that immersive technology can have on corporates, employees and for healthcare.”
Dr Séamus O’Neill, Chair of the AHSN Network, said: “The NHS Innovation Accelerator is one of the flagship programmes of the NHS. We are very proud of the impact it is having in supporting innovators across the NHS and social care. Many very promising NIA innovations have benefitted from visibility and evidence generation through the AHSNs. It is gratifying too that we are already seeing a number of the NIA innovations getting traction in terms of adoption and spread with patient and population benefit as a consequence. We look forward to working with the new NIA Fellows over the coming months to develop and deploy these life-saving innovations at scale across the country.”
