Haag-Streit to present Ophthalmic Skills Training Center concept at ESCRS 2023

At the core of the Ophthalmic Skills Training Center is the combination of Eyesi Surgical virtual reality training simulators and wet lab stations using Haag-Streit Hi-R NEO 900 microscopes. At the 41st Congress of the ESCRS, visitors can experience training concepts for cataract surgery, including advanced phaco chopping techniques and anterior vitrectomy. As part of the OSTC concept, Haag-Streit offers educational institutions consultancy on essential aspects of setting up a training center, ranging from room design, ergonomics, and media technology to methodical approaches to resident learning and skill sustaining.

‘With the Ophthalmic Skills Training Center, we are extending our offering from medical devices and high-end training simulators to comprehensive learning solutions’, says Stefan Haag, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer at Haag-Streit Group. ‘We are leveraging the joint expertise of our team with educational programs worldwide to provide insight-driven consultancy. Our proposition is to support residency programs in advancing their facilities to state-of-the-art training environments.’

In 2016, Haag-Streit worked closely with Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute to pioneer a new concept for the wet lab and design their ‘Center of Excellence for Ophthalmic Surgical Education and Training’. This was followed by a project with Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, USA, for their ‘Measey Ophthalmic Surgical Training (MOST) Laboratory’ in 2019 to further innovate the concept. Today, more than 10 Ophthalmic Skills Training Centers have been implemented in the United States. In Europe, first projects are evolving.

The OSTC concept combines diagnostic and surgical training on various Eyesi simulators (Surgical, Slit Lamp, Indirect) with wet lab stations using OR-level microscopes. This set-up aims at providing residents with extensive, close-to-life training. Furthermore, Eyesi simulators provide a detailed assessment of each resident’s performance, accessible on the VRmNet web portal. In future, the VRmNet platform will include simulator training data and videos from networked Haag-Streit microscopes, thus providing educators with a comprehensive overview of all performance-related data of their residents.

The 41st Congress of the ESCRS will take place September 08-12, 2023, in Vienna, Austria.