North Kent students train for care with a tech twist

KentOnline / KMTV

By taking advantage of virtual reality and smart home technology, the college is inviting students to explore new ways of interacting with patients.  Bartholomew Hall went down to find out more.

Transcript

00:00I understand it's noisy, Betty. Maybe you could try putting headphones on in your room

00:04to be more comfortable?

00:07Nope, this isn't the latest episode of Black Mirror.

00:10Health and social care students at North Kent College are plugging into virtual reality

00:14to put them face-to-face with real-world care home simulations.

00:19So they might be in a care home, turning up for a shift, someone's upset and they have

00:23to navigate that and calm the residents down.

00:27Well, students are obviously using technology a lot. Most of them have headsets or have

00:32used them in the past, so it's really easy for them to use and it's an environment that

00:37they're very happy and familiar with.

00:39The gear is being showcased today to healthcare professionals as the college opens its assisted

00:43living technology suite, a high-end combination of speakers, sensors and safety measures to

00:49make a patient's day-to-day life more convenient and to help carers in their job delivering

00:54support.

00:54But elsewhere, the technology gets a little bit more sophisticated. So one of the three

00:59scenarios is about John. He's a dementia patient who hasn't yet woken up. The time's getting

01:04on, it's about 11 o'clock. So the smart system is able to send him a nudge to maybe go and

01:09have some breakfast. So one of his speakers, TVs, will come on and send a little message.

01:15Good morning, John. Have you considered having something to eat for breakfast?

01:20So some of the ethos we talk about in the use case scenarios is not only helping the person

01:23to live independently, but also easing the concerns that family members might have as

01:28well. So reducing the stress levels for the family members and the informal carers.

01:33It's all part of North Kent College's advancement towards a technology-based approach to learning.

01:38How do you strike the balance between applying technology that would go on to help students

01:44in their future careers and using technology that would maybe be considered gimmicky or,

01:49you know, that would be a bit more difficult to implement in the real world?

01:52What we've seen is a technology shift over the years where you don't really have to be a computer

01:59scientist to, for instance, start adopting some form of smart home technology. We're finding

02:07when you actually let students loose on it, they're the ones that can teach you about it.

02:12And, you know, the degree of enthusiasm for adopting it is huge.

02:16So it's unclear for how long the technology on display here really will click. As the suite

02:22opens its doors to the healthcare workers of tomorrow, it's up to them to decide just how

02:27well everything connects in the real world. Bartholomew Hall for KMTV in Tunbridge.

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