PSAEON is led by Wade Tovey, a former Principal Lecturer in Social Work with the University’s School of Health & Social Care, and Teesside graduates Sam Harrison and Dominic Lusardi, the co-founders of Animmersion UK Ltd.
They established PSAEON a year ago to create interactive 3D visual online training tools for nursing students to learn practical skills and prepare for clinical exams before going on placements.
Interest from health professionals And their software products for first-year students are already arousing a great deal of interest from health professionals.
'Our online tools have been tested on over 800 students who have used them to practice skills and procedures before doing four practical objective structured clinical examinations covering blood glucose management, resuscitation, asepsis and haemorrhage management.
'And the response has been dramatic, with the need for students to resit some of the tests being reduced by 50%,' said Wade, who is the director of EPICC - the School of Health & Social Care’s enterprise arm.
Dominic, who helped develop the software with Sam Harrison, said: 'The students need to pass these tests before they are allowed to go on their placements and because our system sits between the far end virtual reality and basic e-learning it's easy-to-use. It tells the students what to learn, helps to teach them and then tests them prior to actually sitting the exam.'
Greame Measor, a senior lecturer with Teesside's School of Health & Social Care, says: 'It is absolutely brilliant and a fantastic way to augment the learning the students have to do. I only wish this was available when I was a student.'
Winning a heat in the Blueprint awards PSAEON’s business concept was first recognised by winning a Teesside heat in the prestigious North East Blueprint Awards in 2010.
'We are delighted at the recognition we are starting to get for our pioneering work in this field.'
'Staff and students at the University are delighted with the increased pass rates and now we’re hoping to interest external organisations, such as the St John Ambulance Service in using PSAEON’s software in their first aid training.
'As many as 900,000 people are trained by St John Ambulance each year, so it's a big potential market.' said Dominic.
He set up Animmersion with fellow Teesside computing graduate, Sam Harrison, to produce interactive digital media content through the use of 3D computer graphics and is delighted with the new partnership with Wade Tovey and the University.
Animmersion was initially supported by Teesside University’s graduate enterprise scheme and is now based in the DigitalCity’s BoHo’s zone.