Over the past few years, a wave of digitalization has been sweeping across sectors, fostering innovation.  Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recognized the value of incorporating digital technologies in its training programs. Digital platforms, leveraging new-age technologies such as AI/ML, AR/VR, and more, not only serve as a powerful tool to impart learning. 

Towards this, the Child Health Division of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India (GoI) with technical Support from Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI) has developed a Virtual Reality (VR) training package for new-born care and resuscitation. The training package allows a healthcare provider to practice in a personalized and self-paced virtual environment simulating nearly all real life scenario to improve their key skills, become competent and confident in managing and saving a Newborn during the crucial “Golden Minute” after birth. The skills of each trainee is being spontaneously assessed, validated and visualized through a Learning Management System that works in the background. The innovation aims to train the next million healthcare providers using emerging immersive technology.

National Health Mission Government of Odisha has become the first state to pilot demonstrate the VR based new-born resuscitation package on 15^th and 16^th June, 2023 in Bhubaneshwar. The demo modules of the training package have been very easy to understand and all the service providers including Nurses and Doctors used it to refresh their knowledge.

Government of India and state NHMs with support of NIPI intend using VR based lab at state and district level, wherein medical and nursing officers can practice the VR modules as per their requirement and a single VR device can be used by multiple users simultaneously. Going forward, the State NHM of Odisha is also planning to conduct trainings of Doctors and Nurses at state, district and block levels on VR based NSSK training packages.