In Quebec, about a hundred nurses take their first steps in the health network every year.
To better train and sometimes even reassure them, the CIUSSS de l’Ouest de l’île de Montréal relies on a mixed reality headset that allows more experienced staff to help them remotely.
At the LaSalle intensive care unit in Montreal, newly hired young nurses can quickly learn new techniques thanks to a mixed virtual headset.
The department head or his assistant remains available at almost any time and guides you through the headset as if they were at your side. You see everything the nursing staff does during procedures and can give them advice on what to do.
“At home, I can connect through my Teams application to help them carry out the treatment technique,” says Éric Labonté, head of the intensive care unit at Lasalle Hospital. “In the last few months we have had a major recruitment problem. We have had to hire many nurses with little or no experience, so I can support their work.”
The project began in early August at LaSalle Hospital. Since then, around twenty nurses have used the headset.
“No one was trained to create a venous line in the evening, so we often had to wait until daylight to treat the patient,” explains Sabrina Marzeughi, a clinical nurse at LaSalle Hospital. “The headset ensures that patients don’t have to wait.”
Patients and their families welcome this new tool.
“I think technology is good, the more there is the better,” says Lucette Lemelin while visiting a patient.
The device is manufactured by Microsoft and it is the responsibility of Auger Groupe Conseil to install “the solutions it contains” and “make them easy to use for nursing staff,” says Hugo Lafontaine, vice president of the department. Auger Consulting Group.
The Jewish General Hospital and Lakeshore General Hospital are also participating in the Trois-Rivières pilot project, which aims to demonstrate its effectiveness in training nurses more quickly and efficiently across all hospital centers.