Anais Medical, a new company founded by Parc Taulí Research and Innovation Institute (I3PT) and led by José Ibeas (nephrologist at Parc Taulí University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain), intends to develop practical educational material that uses realistic models and simulations, according to a press release. The company aims to enable the training and skills of clinical experts to be improved in interventionist procedures, especially in relation to dialysis patients.
The company will enable the design and manufacture of highly realistic simulation models so that medical students, residents, and nurses can practice and develop the necessary skills and techniques before performing their first invasive procedures on patients, such as placing catheters in the jugular vein, creating a fistula by performing surgery on arteries and veins, puncturing fistulas, and performing endovascular procedures like angioplasties or placing a stent.
The ultimate goal, according to the Ibeas team, is to accelerate and improve the learning of future clinical experts in different areas including nephrology, vascular surgery, radiology or nursing. This is possible thanks to the development of highly realistic simulation models through, on one hand, virtual reality products and, on the other hand, products made of synthetic material that reproduce human tissue and human anatomy in a very similar way, as they are based on the structures of real patients. In both cases, they explain, these virtual and synthetic models are almost unique in the market and offer a complete and realistic immersive experience to students.
“While physical models allow practical training and familiarisation with invasive procedures in a risk-free environment, virtual reality offers the first interaction with anatomy in an environment that allows immersion in XNUMX dimensions,” Ibeas said.
The interdisciplinary Clinical, Interventional and Computational Nephrology (CICN) group of I3PT, coordinated by Ibeas, has a long career path in the field of medical care, research and training, and lately, thanks to its mixed clinical and engineering infrastructure, also in innovation. Now, the foundation of Anais Medical as a spin-off will allow it to offer its products to the market, the press release states.
