A clinical scenario for practising conversation.

Our Work / For innovation teams

Evidence your clinical and safety owners can check

Practise the conversations where the response matters, with results published by the organisations that ran them.

The situation

You have found something worth piloting. Now it needs sign-off

An innovation lead sees staff rehearse a hard conversation in a headset or with an AI character. Before a pilot, the clinical governance lead, the safety manager and the educator each ask the same question: what does the evidence say, and who measured it?

A director waits in a plain meeting room. A first person VR training scenario for government and public sector, seen through the headset. — A director waits in a meeting room.

Nurses discuss a handover at a ward station, a headset on the nearer nurse, a corridor behind them. — Two nurses at a ward station.

A permits officer reviews a screen with colleagues. A VR training scenario for mining and resources. — Colleagues review a screen together.

The conversations

Four conversations where the response matters

Each one can affect safety, dignity, care or someone’s job. These are the moments staff rehearse.

A nurse leader wearing a headset stands in a ward corridor facing two simulated colleagues, one of whom has looked away. — A nurse leader faces two colleagues.

Speaking up and bias

Challenging an unsafe decision by someone senior. Recognising exclusion, and responding to it.

De-escalation and difficult conversations

Responding to someone who is becoming angry. Addressing performance, a complaint or harm, with a family or a colleague.

The evidence

Three results, each labelled by who measured it

Two are peer-reviewed papers. One is a client’s own program evaluation. Forward them as they are.

An office desk scenario in the Google DEI training, an overheard conversation involving tokenism. — An office desk scenario from the Google training.

Peer reviewed: Google, ACM CHI 2024

In the published paper, the 7 trainees who returned the optional survey gave 82% average agreement that the VR training was better than Google’s standard DEI training, and 94% average satisfaction. The scenarios were co-designed with Google’s DEI team. Read the case study.

A clinician wearing a headset stands at a hospital bedside facing a simulated patient propped up on pillows, practising the bedside conversation in a ward that looks like the ward. — A clinician at a hospital bedside.

Peer reviewed: Mayo Clinic, a controlled trial

Of 1,149 eligible nursing leaders, those who trained in the VR program People Tech Revolution built gained in empathic feeling against a control group (p = .002). Read both Mayo Clinic papers.

Inside the Mater build: an older patient sits up in a hospital bed, a meal tray across the blanket, curtains drawn beside him. — Inside the Mater build, at a hospital bedside.

Client evaluation: Mater Education

In Mater’s own program evaluation, 90% of participants reported better concentration, 77% found the scenarios more engaging than face-to-face delivery, and over 96% wanted more training in VR. Read the case study.

Download the Google research paper PDF Download the Mater case study PDF

A caseworker wearing a headset sits at a desk across from a simulated distressed client holding his head. — A caseworker sits across from a distressed client.

De-escalation: research, not our results

PTR has no published de-escalation result of its own yet. The published studies report confidence and simulated-skill gains, each with design limits worth reading before a pilot.

Sign-off

What each owner will ask, and where the answer is

Send each reviewer the page written for their question.

A facilitator briefs participants in a workshop room. — A facilitator briefs participants.

Clinical governance and safety

Which rule does it serve? See the mandatory training action, occupational violence duties and US workplace violence rules.

Privacy, security and procurement

Where is data processed, and under what terms? The governance page carries the identifiers, processing locations and documents reviewers read.

A bearded man in a navy jacket talks across a table to two colleagues, a tablet of coloured shapes between them. — A consultation across a table, tablet between them.

Education and evaluation

How will we know it worked? Agree the measures first with the pilot evaluation guide, and plan the scene and debrief with the scenario design guide.

Questions

What innovation leads ask first

Short answers.

Four people lean over a table in a dark studio, lit from below by a glowing shape resting on it. — Four people lean over a lit table.

Custom build or ready-made?

Both exist. Ready-made titles run from the PTR Immersive Training Library; custom scenarios are built from your own situations. See how provider types compare.