Virtual Reality Triage Training Provides a Viable Solution for Disaster-Preparedness

The authors conducted a study to “determine if a fully immersive virtual reality disaster drill is as effective as a comparable live disaster drill using standardized patients in teaching and assessing START triage knowledge and skills for EM residents.” Pre-test results and triage accuracy among the two groups were similar, and results from the post-test, conducted 2 weeks post-training, showed greater knowledge retention among participants in the group that used standardized patients/mannequins. The authors concluded that the 2 training methods were equally effective, and that virtual reality is more cost-effective, and allows for flexibility in disaster scenarios used for training.