The Taneja College of Pharmacy has enhanced its foundational, didactic, and experiential curriculum to accommodate the diversity of students entering pharmacy school, many with diverse backgrounds in study, work, and life experiences. The curriculum includes components that allow students to pursue their passions, become workforce-ready, and pursue nontraditional pharmacy career paths.

As the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy’s (TCOP) new 30,000-square-foot home in downtown Tampa continues to progress, plans include a Maker Space/Creativity Lounge, a space that will connect students, faculty, and staff with leaders and innovators to promote creativity as part of professional development.

“The key to this vision is the ITEHC Academy (Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship in Healthcare). What originally started as a student-developed organization has grown to become the foundation for initiatives focused on advancing our student’s creativity, innovative and disruptive mindsets. It is now the pinnacle of the pillars and strategic plan of the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy,” said Kevin M. Olson, MBA, PharmD, CPh, assistant professor at the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy and director of the ITEHC Academy.

To help elevate and advance pharmaceutical education further, the new space will include virtual and augmented reality, a multitaction video wall, CAD drawing software, 3D printing, and holographic technology.

The space will allow various student groups, such as ITEHC, to develop innovative ideas and prototypes for health-related devices.

“Envision a space where students, faculty, staff, and community partners can come together and collaborate, a space where they can discover new ways of creating value that will advance pharmacy practice, differentiate pharmacist career opportunities, and reshape the future of pharmacy and health care,” Dr. Olson said.

Story and video by Ryan Rossy, USF Health Communications and Marketing

Rendering of the Student Commons outside the Creativity Lounge.

Rendering of the Creativity Lounge.

With virtual and augmented reality becoming more prominent, the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) is expanding its research efforts to explore the use of virtual and augmented reality in medical simulation training. 

“Traditionally, health care simulation has been actors, task-trainers, and mannequins. Virtual reality allows us to be fully immersed in an alternate world and that world can be an operating room, an outpatient clinic, or an ambulance, and be changed quickly. You will really feel like you’re there, which is challenging to do in a simulation center.” said Yasuharu “Haru” Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH, executive director for USF Health CAMLS and associate vice president for USF Health Interprofessional Education and Practice.

As the research mission at CAMLS develops, the goal is to easily export its virtual medical simulation trainings to different parts of the world so other medical professionals can take advantage of the research expertise there.

“You can connect to VR training scenarios from anywhere. You will be able to bring it to your home, bring it to your classroom, and conduct a training within only a headset that is just as powerful as anything in person,” Dr. Okuda said.

Shannon Bailey, PhD, Sr. Human Factors Scientist for USF Health CAMLS and assistant professor for the Department of Medical Education at the Morsani College of Medicine.

To help expand its research efforts, CAMLS hired a PhD, tenure-track researcher, Shannon Bailey. She has over 10 years of experience designing and testing extended reality (XR) training simulations and educational games. In her research, she explores how augmented, virtual, and extended reality technology can be used to inspire effective student learning through adaptive training and natural user interfaces.

Before coming to CAMLS, Dr. Bailey worked for the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD). After gaining extensive experience in military simulation training, she transitioned to the field of medical simulation training as a researcher director for a technology company called Immertec, which develops medical simulation training to impact how medical professionals learn.

“This research is important because it is moving the field forward by systematically testing different ways to approach simulation training and finding ways to optimize the training for both the learner and the medical professionals, which could lead to better outcomes for patients,” said Dr. Shannon Bailey, assistant professor for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

“VR at CAMLS will not replace real-world mannequin-based training,” Dr. Okuda said, but offering a resource to those who lack access to high-fidelity simulation centers allows them to experience the same level of training and experience in a virtual environment. 

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Shannon Bailey as our first PhD tenure-track researcher at CAMLS. What she brings to CAMLS is the ability for us to really lean into this area of extended reality and then apply it into a health care academic setting,” said Dr. Okuda. 

Story and video by Ryan Rossy, USF Health Communications and Marketing

The research teams will use Immertec’s live virtual reality (VR) platform to train USF Health resident physicians in critical emergency scenarios as a part of their overall graduate medical education, measuring learning outcomes and user experience.

TAMPA, Fla. (August 17, 2021) – Immertec, a medtech startup company, and the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) were recently awarded a $150,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to examine the effectiveness of training emergency medicine physician residents using Immertec’s virtual reality (VR) platform.

The NIH-funded research will allow Immertec to conduct an experiment in collaboration with USF Health CAMLS to assess the feasibility of live VR training for specific medical tasks carried out by emergency medicine residents from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. The immersive experience will allow remote professionals from any location to wear the VR headset and train as if they are in the room, with access to timely medical feeds, including X-rays, vitals, and endoscopic cameras.

Medical simulation training with an expert instructor is known to improve patient outcomes, yet expertise and resources are not always available at the point of need. And with limitations on face-to-face instruction, educators previously relied on 2D teleconferencing technology for telementoring, which is limited by lack of depth and field of view.

Immertec’s technology enables medical professionals to train immersively from a remote location by streaming real-time stereoscopic video of the clinical setting to a VR headset. The stereoscopic video provides additional visuospatial information, including multiple medical feeds, compared to 2D displays, providing a greater feeling of immersion while training.

This study will compare Immertec’s live VR training platform to traditional 2D teleconferencing technologies and determine how it impacts the quality of learning, training outcomes, and user experience of remote learning.

The research effort will be led by Shannon Bailey, PhD, human factors scientist at Immertec and principal investigator on this grant, and will be in collaboration with USF Health CAMLS, led by Haru Okuda, MD, executive director of CAMLS, assistant vice president of the USF Health Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice, and professor in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

“The research conducted in collaboration with USF Health CAMLS will provide empirical evidence on how immersive remote technologies compare to traditional telementoring methods in medicine. We look forward to leveraging the extensive knowledge of the USF Health team and CAMLS’ state-of-the-art facility to better understand how to improve our technology to train medical professionals,” Dr. Bailey said.

Such collaborations between industry and academic medicine have the potential to accelerate innovations for improving healthcare education and ultimately patient outcomes.

“We’re excited to collaborate with an innovative startup like Immertec,” Dr. Okuda said. “We believe strongly in the potential of immersive training technology and now have the opportunity to conduct research to better understand how virtual reality can change the way medical professionals learn in today’s climate.”

Immertec’s platform includes a desktop portal that allows companies and organizations to schedule training events, a mobile app that allows attendees to register for events and request a VR headset, and a hardware camera cart present in a clinical setting to stream live content. Immertec’s platform allows medical professionals to be immersed in a live clinical setting, communicate with attendees, and view multiple medical feeds while wearing a VR headset from a remote location.

USF Health CAMLS, located in downtown Tampa, Florida, is one of the world’s largest, free-standing simulation facilities exclusively dedicated to training healthcare professionals. The CAMLS facility is a 90,000-square-foot, three-story facility that provides a state-of-the-art, high-fidelity clinical environment that includes surgical skills labs, operating trauma suites, and patient exam rooms.

The first phase of the research project will validate Immertec’s immersive technology in medical training and provide empirical evidence of the technical and scientific merit of this remote training approach for future commercialization in the health care field.

Images highlighting the technology that will be used in the study, courtesy of Immertec:

On-site at CAMLS, Dr. Luis Llerena demonstrates a procedure on a mannequin while camera and audio equipment record and send the info to trainees on the program.

A trainee uses the VR headshot and controls to participate in Dr. Llerena’s demonstration.

The viewpoint within VR headset include visual, data, and interactivity options.

First-year students put on simulation goggles to see how certain drugs interact in the body

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWfY54qgebU

Virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) realities are transforming the way pharmacology students learn at the University of South Florida’s College of Pharmacy. First-year students are now using simulation goggles to see how certain drugs interact in the body.

They have applied AR/VR to visualize how beta blockers commonly prescribed to treat hypertension, asthma and cardiac workload may affect the heart, lungs and blood vessels. This new learning experience is part of a key initiative to integrate advanced technologies into the student curriculum.

Daniel Lee, PhD, associate professor of pharmaceutical science (standing), explains the integration of virtual and augmented reality into the College of Pharmacy  course he’s teaching.

“As dean, I teach an advanced metabolic syndrome course, and I have always wanted the students to have high fidelity visualization of the medications we use to treat diabetes and heart disease. With AR/ VR, we are now able to conceptualize organ function better, soon followed by complex medication mechanisms of action,” said Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the USF College of Pharmacy. “We are now able to conceptualize organ function better.”

During a recent class, students covered their eyes with headsets and chose from components previously learned. They used a laser beam to drag and drop small medication doses onto an organ to witness a reaction. In some treatments the heart beat faster, the lungs expanded, or blood vessels constricted.

“They are able to really play with and really understand which drugs are causing the constriction which would lead to increase hypertension,” said Daniel Lee, PhD, associate professor of pharmaceutical science. Lee’s students gained a better perspective on main lecture objectives down to molecular organ function.

The experience is a game changer for Andreas Rosario, a student who had never tried VR and was seen smiling from ear to ear. “In lecture it’s just words and pictures, kind of hard sometimes to wrap your mind around it,” Rosario said. “I can just take my own time, it’s my own experience.”

Another student, Amanda Hutchings, said she’s a visual learner. “You can tell me day in and day out what Carvedilol (a drug treatment) does this to a receptor, but until I see it happen, I’m not going to understand it.”

This program is just the beginning. Feedback from participating students will be factored into future reiterations of the module. Faculty from the college will continue to work closely Information Technology’s Advanced Visualization Center (AVC) at USF to keep the technology fresh. Funding is received from a student technology fee initiative.

“It’s a great collaboration that shows the spirit of USF,” said Howard Kaplan, advanced technologies manager at AVC.

Kaplan’s team develops mechanisms for learning inside augmented and virtual realities with many departments across the university to innovate curriculums, enhance research projects and inspire more uses of new technologies.

“I wish I had something like this when I was learning pharmacology,” said Lee.“It’s very interactive.”

– Video by Ryan Noone and photos by Sandra C. Roa, USF Communications and Marketing

The Healthcare Imaginarium for Exponential Technologies, or HIETs is the brainchild of visionary College of Pharmacy Dean Kevin Sneed

Kevin Sneed, PharmD, (standing right) dean of the USF College of Pharmacy, spoke about how exciting new technologies would be integrated into the college’s currriculum starting this fall.

TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 22, 2018) — USF Health’s Pharmacy Dean Kevin Sneed, PharmD, announced this week several key initiatives intended to integrate advanced technologies into the student curriculum and to keep the college at the cutting-edge of innovation in education, research and patient care. He spoke Feb. 20 to a gathering of business and community leaders, as well as students, faculty and staff.

“We want our USF College of Pharmacy to remain relevant not only today, but for the next 25 years,” Dr. Sneed said.  “Right from the beginning, our mission has been to revolutionize health through innovation and empowerment… Now is the time to reimagine what education will be moving into the future.”

The initiatives are part of a newly created Healthcare Imaginarium for Exponential Technologies or HIETs.   They include the introduction in fall 2018 of virtual reality content to supplement existing curriculum and help make the learning experiences of USF pharmacy students more immersive and life-like than textbooks, online content and traditional videos.

Many of those gathered used mobile device technology to record the event.

Students will put on special eyewear to view computer-generated images they could interact with. So for instance, they might experience in 360-degree, three-dimensional context the growth of plaques in coronary arteries and what happens when a stent is inserted to clear a clogged artery.  In yet-to-be-developed ways, virtual reality technology may also seamlessly combine pharmacology with physiology to simulate the effects of treatment. For example, students could visualize in real-time the action on smooth muscle airways when a bronchodilator drug is inhaled by an asthma patient. Such advanced technology could also be harnessed by health professionals as a more engaging way to educate patients about their diagnoses and care, Dr. Sneed said.

The College of Pharmacy plans to work with MediaLab 3D Solutions, a Tampa-based digital content creator, and BioLucid, a digital health company recently acquired by Sharecare, to develop a combination of virtual, augmented and mixed reality content.

USF pharmacy student Natalie Dehaney demonstrates how virtual reality technology allows students to visualize what happens inside the body when a patient experiences atrial fibrillation. She can trigger and replay the simulation of electrical conduction in the heart. 

MediaLab CEO Bruce VanWingerden said the project will be the first time the company, which works with major corporations, has ventured into academia. “This is an exciting opportunity to work with Dr. Sneed and his staff to really look at different ways to present in a new and exciting fashion information that can be difficult to convey,” VanWingerden said. “We want to take all the innovative technology and make it easy to use to further the educational process.”

Laysa Mena, a student delegate for the College of Pharmacy, describes herself as a “visual learner” who absorbs more by seeing than reading. “So I feel implementing virtual reality with our curriculum would be very beneficial and give us a better appreciation of how drugs work in the body,” she said.

Dr. Sneed announced a key initiative known as the Botanical Medicinal Research Consortium, which will team USF researchers and clinicians with local companies to conduct evidence-based  clinical research on whether non-euphoric forms of cannabis may benefit patients with certain diseases.

Another key initiative, known as the Botanical Medicinal Research Consortium, or BMRC, will bring together researchers and clinicians in USF’s colleges of pharmacy and medicine, the university’s Center for Drug Discovery & Innovation, and businesses in Tampa Bay and beyond to conduct rigorous studies on the safety and effectiveness of medical cannabis and other plant derivatives.

Many unanswered questions remain about the potential of cannabinoids, the active chemical found in the plant and elsewhere, to treat various diseases or conditions like chronic pain. The USF College of Pharmacy wants to take the lead in conducting top-quality research on medical cannabis and find the correct noneuphoric formulations that may benefit patients and their overall health, Dr. Sneed said.

Mark Kindy, PhD (left), professor of pharmaceutical sciences, is the College of Pharmacy’s liaison for the Botanical Medicinal Research Consortium, and Kevin Olson, PharmD, MBA, assistant professor of biopharmaceutics and clinical research, is the liaison for the Entreprenerial Academy, a collaboration with the Muma College of Business. 

“Plant-derived compounds are the future of medicine, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with the University of South Florida in this area,” said Garyn Angel, chief strategy officer for ANANDA Scientific, a company that produces nonpsychoactive and nonabusive oral cannabinoid health products. “Evidence-based clinical research is needed for cannabinoids to enter Western medicine.”

Dr. Sneed also announced that the BMRC would collaborate with the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, one of the first academic programs dedicated to investigating cannabis to lead public policy and public health decisions.

Other HIETs initiatives include:

• With the College of Engineering, USF Pharmacy will work to advance personalized medicine that tailors therapy based on an individual’s genetic makeup. As the technology of medicine and drug development continues to shrink down to the nanoscale, USF has also started a Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology master’s program to teach students how to deliver medications in new, more precise ways.

• The College of Pharmacy will join forces with the Muma College of Business to create an Entrepreneurial Academy that inspires innovation and start-up companies.  The aim is to help pharmacists think like entrepreneurs so they can better enhance heath care outcomes and cost-effectiveness.

• Clinical trials: Through its WE-CARE program (Workgroup Enhancing Community Advocacy and Research Engagement), the College of Pharmacy partners with key stakeholders to increase participation of minority and medically underserved populations in clinical trials.  The program seeks to ensure that all communities have access to genomic clinical research as technology advances.

-Photos by Torie Doll, USF Health Communications and Marketing