LONDON – July 6th – Today, FundamentalVR, pioneers of immersive HapticVR^TM training technology, which combines virtual reality (VR) with haptics (sense of touch), has announced the company has received centre accreditation from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The honor recognizes FundamentalVR as a leading organization that meets high standards for creating and implementing simulations that help surgeons, residents and students practice and improve their skills and performance.

Respected for its dedication to surgical education, training, assessment, examination and research, the Royal College of Surgeons of England established the centre accreditation to provide a kite mark of quality that has been adopted by many leading organizations that develop world-class surgical education courses, solutions and platforms. Organizations that receive accreditation have met criteria set by the Royal College of Surgeons of England that prove a superior level of commitment to Surgical Education and Training. Once an organization receives accreditation, they continue to participate in annual audits by the Royal College of Surgeons of England to ensure their education portfolio relating to their innovations continue to fulfil the established requirements.

“At the Royal College of Surgeons of England we are always looking to recognise providers that employ innovative training methods.” said a member of the RCS Quality Assurance Team. “We are pleased to award Fundamental Surgery with Centre Accreditation and look forward to working with them to continue to advance surgical education, training and ultimately patient care.”

Since its infancy, FundamentalVR has been dedicated to democratizing surgical simulation training through its cutting-edge, multimodal, educational platform, Fundamental Surgery. To show its commitment to developing immersive training solutions, the company has established several teams of renowned experts including its in-house medical education team, its Global Medical Panel and several discipline specific panels of surgeons, who all oversee the review of simulations. Additionally, the company created a multisensory surgical task analysis process, along with a professional quality enhancement process, which underpins the design of all new simulations. These dedicated teams and procedures led the company to receive centre accreditation.

This accreditation news follows Fundamental Surgery‘s entire current portfolio of orthopaedic surgical training simulations receiving Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in late 2019.  To maintain professional standards, surgeons must accrue 50 CPD points a year. CPD accreditation confirmed Fundamental Surgery’s simulations are activities that demonstrate sufficient educational value to contribute to the CPD for which 6 CPD points can be claimed. Fundamental Surgery’s range of orthopaedic simulations were also accredited by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons earlier this year.

“At FundamentalVR, we are committed to creating accessible educational simulations that surgeons and trainees can utilize anywhere and at any time to train and hone their skills. We’ve worked with medical and VR experts since launch to ensure the validity of our simulations,” said Richard Vincent, CEO of FundamentalVR. “When our range of orthopaedic simulations received accreditation from both the Royal College of Surgeons and the AAOS, that proved we had succeeded at developing useful training tools for the medical community. This latest accreditation from the Royal College of Surgeons for our company as a whole, solidifies our position in the industry, and we will continue our efforts to maintain this incredible honor.”

Fundamental Surgery launched in 2018 as the world’s first educational surgical software platform to use HapticVR^TM to mimic the physical cues of surgical actions, medical tools and tissue variations, allowing surgeons to experience the same sights, sounds and feel they would in a real procedure. Furthermore, its remote data analytics and data dashboard covering surgical skills and knowledge provide invaluable insight into surgical capability and education progression.

To provide surgeons and supervisors with even more opportunities to train and hone their skills, FundamentalVR expanded the Fundamental Surgery platform with the addition of a new education modality @HomeVR. For the first time, this expansion brings educational simulations accredited by medical professional bodies (RCS and AAOS) to standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus. Fundamental Surgery’s multimodal platform’s accompanying educational material provides real-time feedback to students and supervisors on every step of a simulated procedure.