Sim&Care, the adventure continues
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By Héloïse Guillot / February 25th 2020
Barely a year has passed since the Hacking Health Camp 2019 and the “Transgene – BioValley France – Health Factory” prize obtained by our Sim & Care lumbar puncture simulator. Since then, InSimo has continued its efforts to offer medical students an effective educational solution for medial gesture training. Only one year later, Sim & Care is therefore in the starting blocks for a commercial launch at the end of spring 2020.

The InSimo team at the HHC 2019
A year ago, the problem was to successfully recreate the environment of a lumbar puncture and the interactions between the physician and the patient, while taking into account the educational needs of learning the technical gesture. Thanks to Hacking Health Camp and our amazing team (Emilie, Laure, Léa, Lokmane, Houria and Elisa), we started to provide an answer: an augmented reality environment associated with the simulator that will allow the maximum use of elements from reality on which the invasive aspects of the procedure will be added thanks to the simulation.
Following the success of our project, new issues emerged: what to represent in the augmented reality environment, how to best guide the student’s gesture with visual or sound signals? In order to move forward on these questions, InSimo was a candidate for the Tango & Scan call for projects from Strasbourg Eurometropole and Accro. Once again, Sim & Care seduced and was among the 2019 winners! The funding obtained made it possible to start a new collaboration and to integrate into the project the creative influences of Yvan Freund, medical illustrator, and Coralie Diatkine, acoustic designer.
The close collaboration established with the rheumatology department of Hautepierre University Hospital thanks to Professor Gottenberg and Doctor Felten continues, and allows us to develop a relevant tool from a medical point of view and from a pedagogical point of view. The feelings associated with crossing each anatomical structure are precisely defined during adjustment sessions. Repeated tests with the students of the service make it possible to put forward the needs of the users and to develop an adapted tool.
The year 2019 also marks the start of a partnership with the Lilly laboratory, which joined forces with InSimo to offer training in lumbar puncture in various hospital departments. These training courses, open to both experienced practitioners and interns, allow the staff of the departments concerned to train on functional prototypes and InSimo to benefit from essential user feedback to guide the further development of its simulator.

Augmented Reality getting better in Sim&Care
Over the months, the simulator drastically evolved, the interface became more precise, augmented reality (now on Microsoft Hololens headset) was implemented and the sensations were more and more realistic. One year of work to allow InSimo to present the first hybrid medical gesture simulator!
Sim&Care is an innovative educational tool that combines role-playing and virtual simulation. The student takes charge of a “real” patient (another student for example), and the positioning and palpation steps to determine the puncture point can take place in real conditions. Through dialogue with a real person, he also acquires the right reflexes to reassure the patient. Then thanks to the augmented reality headset, the student sees the simulated anatomy appear on the back of his partner, which allows him to understand the anatomical aspects behind his gesture. Interactive biomechanical simulation realistically reproduces tissues, ligaments, bones and allows the student to manipulate a virtual needle while feeling resistance through a force feedback interface. Visual and sound signals will make it possible to transcribe the emotional state of the patient in real time so that the learning takes fully into account the human dimension of this procedure.
Tests and demonstrations multiplied, and in December, thanks to the Lilly laboratory, InSimo had the chance to present Sim&Care at the Congress of the French Society of Rheumatology, and got very good feedback. In January, Sim&Care toured France thanks to the Hacking Health Camp and demonstrations took place in Strasbourg, Nantes and Toulon. And to start 2020 on a high note, Sim&Care received the Grand Est Region Prize awarded by Lilla Merabet during the Innovation Trophies.

Winner of the Grand Est Region Prize for the 2020 Innovation Trophies
