#33: Preparing For The Worst: Using VR To Train EMTs with Carla Bond, Founder/CEO at UpSkill VR

What you’ll get out of this episodeTim sat down with Carla Bond, Founder and CEO of UpSkill VR, to discuss the transformative role that virtual reality is playing in emergency training. Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) kills 1 person every 2 minutes in the United States, and 70% of SCAs happen at home. But did you know your chance of survival increases 45% when CPR is administered promptly?! UpSkill VR uses VR to help students, EMTs, and communities prepare for emergency situations, rooted in Carla’s own personal experience. She shares her personal experience as an EMT, including a story where she arrived at a call and found an infant in need of help and the surprising realization that led Carla to founding the company. We dive into the details of her journey as an entrepreneur, her target market, ideal partners and end users, and what's next for UpSkill beyond CPR. Here are some of the key takeaways from the episode:In this episode you’ll discover:Why Carla and UpSkill VR are on a mission to improve the ways emergency training is delivered using virtual reality, and how they create more immersive and realistic scenarios for trainees to practice in a safe environment.Carla’s personal story as an EMT and how that experience shaped the UpSkill mission.We discuss the potential of VR to help bridge the gap in healthcare education and training and improve patient outcomes.Carla talks about the importance of partnerships in growing UpSkill VR and how they are working with different organizations to expand their reach.We also chat about Carla's experience as a Navy veteran, the challenges she faced transitioning to civilian life, and the importance of having a support system within the veteran community.Finally, we explore the exciting developments on the horizon for UpSkill VR beyond CPR training, including the potential to expand into other areas such as public health and safety.Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 SecondsTop Challenges:  Exposure, VR hardware prices, content availabilityTop Opportunity: PersonalizationTech Trend You’re Following: Realism – game art and designTop Media Recs: The Transition, by Bunker Labs (Link→)"Stand for Something", by Brian Burkhar (Link→)Healthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: Ryan Ribeira, CEO at SimX (LinkedIn →)Tim Cook, CEO at AppleQuotables“When you think about a traditional CPR class, you’re in a controlled environment and you’re playing essentially with a doll, of course they are manikins, but it's a torso. So the first thing you’re not going to encounter out in the real world is a torso and a head that needs CPR, and there is nothing else going on. So me showing up to calls; to summarize, I showed up to a call that really was a catalyst for me, I showed up to a call where according to the mother who had been a nurse for 20 years; so that’s at least 10 CPR classes that she sat through, but when we got there, he was still wedged between the tub and the toilet. It was not that she did not have the education to do it, she did not have that emotional tie to be able to take what she used in the class room and bring it to real life, and that’s where VR came in. ““Our perfect candidate is people who are professionals in the healthcare space, who are typically 1. Required to have it, since they are doing it anyway, and 2. Students who are going into the healthcare field, whether they are in highschool or college. We want to be there before you hit the clinic or hospital, so by the time that you get your first job, you’ve had endless amounts of practice on the most realialistic scenarios possible so we don’t have doctors passing out at the first sign of arterial blood or EMTs having those difficult calls. We can out them in there ahead of time and expirence it. This weeds out a lot of darkness, because you don’t really know how you’re going to respond, but if I out you in VR, I can pretty much tell you how you are going to respond. With our experiences, we track your heart rate, so I can tell you when you got scared, and I can tell you when you got out of breath. It’s like flight simulation, we want you to screw it up with us, not with anyone else.”Recommended ResourcesNIST, Commerce Launch Emergency Response Training Center with Virtual Reality (NextGov)Emergency Medicine VR (Booz Allen)See What Richie’s Plank Game Looks Like (Playstation VR)Join the Conversation Are you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:Carla Bond on LinkedIn“Upskill VR is excited to be pitching this year at the annual DC Startup Week Early-Stage Pitch Competition next week on Friday, September 16th at Convene sponsored by Sands Capital!! DC Startup Week is the largest event in the DC area for entrepreneurs and startups! 🎉.” Carla Bond on LinkedIn“Meet the winners of DC Startup Week’s annual pitch competition! Ten finalists competed at DC Startup Week's closing event, split between early- and growth-stage groups. Here are the winners.” Read the full article on Technical.ly (September, 2022)About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.