Conquer Mobile started back in 2009 in the early days of mobile when two colleagues from EA, Angela Robert and Aaron Hilton, got together. They began in a tiny space above a flower shop but quickly grew into a thriving mobile services business at the Wavefront wireless incubator space downtown. For 5 years the company built secure mobile business apps for companies such as Webtech Wireless, NGRAIN, Mio, McDonald’s Canada and GenomeDx.

The desire to build a product, expertise in Virtual Reality (VR), and a passion for healthcare all came together in 2014 when Aaron and Angela got chatting with a group of surgeons and neuroscientists. They hit upon a gap in the medical education market and the PeriopSim concept was formed.

Just as flight simulation disrupted the way that pilots were trained, medical simulation is disrupting clinician training. Scrub nurses and surgeons need to practice their skills and make mistakes before they treat a real patient. Medical simulation has been around for some years, but focuses on surgeons.

A surgeon relies on his team being well prepared for the procedure. An efficient surgical team means better surgical procedures and better patient outcomes. There is a gap in training scrub nurses and surgical assistants to recognize and select the right surgical instrument quickly in the Operating Room (OR).

PeriopSim for iPad trains the surgical team to respond quickly with the right instrument for the surgeon. PeriopSim enables surgical staff to practice and hone skills outside of the OR so that they are more efficient in the OR. Efficient teams make fewer errors, reduce time spent in the OR and lead to better patient outcomes.

Gamification techniques learned at EA, combined with VR expertise and mobile experience all come together in PeriopSim. Interactive video of live surgeries, voice narration and gamification such as scoring and timed challenges motivate learning and encourage peer competition.

PeriopSim VR takes learning to another level with a fully immersive environment. Learners don a wireless headset and move around a 3D scanned model of the OR. There are also plans for a multi-player version which will teach team dynamics.

From those early days above the flower shop to creating VR medical simulation for patient safety, it’s been an amazing journey.

“The old mantra of ‘See One, Do One, Teach One’ is no longer desirable or applicable in surgical training.”
Dr. James Bond, Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Surrey Memorial Hospital and Fraser Health