New virtual reality training tool combats contamination of portable medical equipment

Mass General Brigham-developed VR training modules incorporate gamification; clinicians at seven facilities in pilot study found modules enjoyable

Mass General Brigham

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A screengrab of the VR training module showing infection risks on portable medical equipment. The training module incorporates gamification to engage learners. 

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Credit: Mass General Brigham

Infection control researchers at Mass General Brigham have developed a virtual reality (VR) tool to train clinicians on core concepts in infection control, including cleaning and disinfecting portable medical equipment, to prevent the spread of infections throughout healthcare facilities. They successfully piloted the VR training tool at seven facilities across the United States, and their hope is such training can increase staff competency and improve patient safety. The work is published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

“Devices such as blood pressure cuffs, glucometers, and portable imaging machines are everywhere in healthcare, and study after study has shown healthcare is failing at cleaning and disinfecting them, leading to risk of healthcare-associated infections,” said senior author Erica S. Shenoy, MD, PhD, chief of Infection Control for Mass General Brigham. “We know that when core infection control practices are correctly and consistently applied, the risk to patients is reduced; but we also know that the way we have been teaching these practices for decades is not delivering.”

Healthcare-associated Infections affect 1-in-31 patients, result in almost 100,000 deaths annually, and incur $28.4 billion in direct medical costs. Up to 75% of these infections are preventable through implementation of core infection prevention practices. Studies have reported between 25% to 100% of portable medical equipment to be contaminated and shared portable medical equipment has been implicated in transmission of healthcare-associated infections.

Shenoy and her colleagues developed an immersive VR module that uses head-mounted displays and guides learners through a simulated inpatient healthcare environment. The module incorporates gamification and visualization of invisible contamination, where learners review and apply cleaning and disinfection concepts to two different devices: a vital signs machine and a point-of-care ultrasound machine.

“We wanted clinicians to be able to ‘see the unseen’ risk and be completely immersed in a way that could lead to improved knowledge and skills when back in the real world,” explained Shenoy. 

In the study’s initial phase, 31 participants were trained and provided feedback, which was used to revise the training module. Then, an additional 44 participants tried the revised module, 39 of whom (88.6%) reported an overall positive experience. Survey comments from learners often touted their enjoyment of the immersive and virtual, hands-on environment of the platform. While half reported negative physical sensations (motion sickness is common among new VR users), only a few participants reported module challenges, such as difficulty with transporting portable medical equipment, donning and doffing their virtual gloves, or understanding instructions.

Additional research is underway and has moved beyond user experience and acceptability to focus on testing learners’ knowledge, skills, and competency after training with the VR module.

“In busy, complex healthcare settings, a new kind of training is needed that increases muscle memory for these core infection control practices,” said Shenoy. “Maybe not surprising, but certainly encouraging to our team, was that learners expressed joy and excitement for the training. We know that when learners are engaged, they are more likely to retain the information.”

Authorship: Additional Mass General Brigham co-authors include Esteban A. Barreto, PhD, MA, Michelle S. Jerry, BS, Vianelly García, MPH, Chloe V. Green, Andrea S. Greenfield, MSN, CIC, and Eileen F. Searle, PhD, RN.
Disclosures: The authors declare no relevant conflicts of interest.
Funding: This work was supported by a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CK22-2203. The CDC was not involved in preparation, submission, or review of the manuscript
Paper cited: Barreto E. et al. “A Virtual Reality Training Pilot Study for Cleaning and Low-Level Disinfection of Portable Medical Equipment”” Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology DOI: 10.1017/ice.2025.89

For More Information: Video: Revolutionizing Infection Prevention and Control Training with Virtual Reality

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Journal

Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology

TWO

10.1017/ice.2025.89 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Getting Real Clean: A Virtual Reality Training Pilot Study for Cleaning and Low-Level Disinfection of Portable Medical Equipment

Article Publication Date

11-Jun-2025

 

Relocation post-Dobbs among clinicians providing abortions

JAMA Network Open

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About The Study: 

This survey study found that after Dobbs, 42% of survey respondents who provided abortions in states banning abortion relocated to another state. Almost all clinicians who relocated from any policy context relocated to states not banning abortion. 

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Dana Howard, PhD, email dana.howard@osumc.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14884)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14884?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=061125

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

 

Feedback for surgeons curbs excess opioid prescriptions scripts

Penn study shows providing tailored data improves prescribing, maintains patient comfort

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

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PHILADELPHIA— Tailored feedback to surgeons dramatically cuts excessive opioid prescriptions for common surgeries, aligning them with evidence-based guidelines without affecting patient pain control. This approach offers a promising strategy to combat the opioid crisis by aligning prescribing practices with evidence-based guidelines, addressing the critical issue of overprescribing, where excessive opioid prescriptions can lead to harmful side effects and can lead to dependence in some patients or diversion of unused pills. The findings, by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, were published today in JAMA Surgery.

The study leveraged behavioral science and patient-reported data to nudge surgeons and supporting nurse practitioners and physician assistants to compare their prescribing practices with those of colleagues prescribing after similar procedures throughout their health system, offering a scalable model that could transform pain management while prioritizing patient safety and comfort.

“This work moves us closer to personalized pain management,” said M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, director of the Nudge Unit, Co-Chair of the Penn Medicine Opioid Task Force, and an associate professor of Emergency Medicine. “By right sizing opioid prescriptions based on patient needs by procedure, we’re lowering the risk of harms while ensuring patients get the care they need.”

Driven by Patient Feedback
Over the past five years, the Center for Insights to Outcomes at Penn Medicine developed a text-messaging system to track patients’ pain and opioid use, revealing that patients often used far fewer pills than prescribed—for example, only 10 of 30 pills for procedures like knee surgery. This data informed the trial’s guidelines and feedback approach.

“What’s powerful about this approach is that it gives surgeons actionable data they can control,” said Anish Agarwal, MD, MPH, chief wellness officer in the Department of Emergency Medicine and deputy director of the Center for Insights to Outcomes. “We saw every group improve, which was surprising and exciting.”

The trial provided surgical prescribers with data comparing their opioid prescribing to peer averages, Penn Medicine’s patient-informed guidelines. An innovative aspect of the feedback was also showing data on how many pills patients take on average after a given procedure and how well they did with managing their pain if they received a prescription within the guideline recommend amount. Conducted across multiple high-volume surgical divisions, the study showed that when surgeons had this data, there was a substantial increase in guideline adherence, and less overprescribing. Before they had the data, 60% of prescriptions for patients in the control group exceeded recommendations. Notably, these improvements were sustained even after feedback stopped, and patients’ pain scores remained unchanged, ensuring effective pain management.

The study was partially funded by the US Food and Drug Administration (HHSF223201810209C) and a philanthropic grant from the Abramson Family Foundation.

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Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school. 

The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $580 million awarded in the 2023 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts,” Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries that have shaped modern medicine, including CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.  

The University of Pennsylvania Health System cares for patients in facilities and their homes stretching from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. UPHS facilities include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Doylestown Health, Lancaster General Health, Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, chartered in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Penn Medicine at Home, GSPP Rehabilitation, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.

Penn Medicine is an $11.9 billion enterprise powered by nearly 49,000 talented faculty and staff.

 

Leading scientists: Trees and tech needed for carbon removal to help meet the 2C goal of the Paris agreement

Analysis shows high-tech and natural approaches to carbon removal complement—not compete with—one another and race to invest solely in novel approaches risks sidelining natural methods — which are already proven, low-cost and deliver multiple benefits.

Climate Focus

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 Researchers released a peer-reviewed analysis in the academic journal Climate Policy today arguing that the urgent work of removing excess carbon from the atmosphere — known as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) — can’t just rely on complex, untested techniques to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) and inject it deep underground or pump it into the ocean. Rather, they show that nature-based solutions, which include restoring forests and other ecosystems that capture atmospheric CO2 using the ancient biochemical process of photosynthesis and store organic carbon in plants and soil, are also necessary for achieving global climate goals.

“We must rapidly reduce the production of new greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. At the same time, we must also remove and store excess carbon already polluting the atmosphere. In recent years, innovative high-tech CDR companies have introduced promising solutions for capturing carbon. However, these solutions are still in research and development stages, and they are not yet proven at the scale needed,” said Charlotte Streck, a professor at the University of Potsdam, the founder of Climate Focus and the lead author of the Climate Policy journal analysis, “Considering durability in carbon dioxide removal strategies for climate change mitigation.”

“At the same time, it’s well established that forests and other ecosystems are effective at storing carbon — while also providing clean air and water, safeguarding biodiversity and keeping the planet cool. We must embrace both high-tech and natural methods of CDR to succeed,” she said.

Countries and companies have embraced CDR, which was written into the Paris climate agreement, as a key strategy for fulfilling their climate goals and net zero commitments. It’s estimated that companies will invest some $250 billion in CDR by 2050, most of which will go to high-tech concepts that aren’t yet operational.

Nature and tech CDR are often pitted against each other. In those comparisons, nature CDR is referred to as “temporary” and tech CDR as “permanent.” Such binary classification implies the necessity of giving priority to tech over nature. However, creating such false choice does not help as available CDR strategies are all contributing to climate change mitigation, but differ in their risk profile, short- and long-term benefits. While tech CDR is more durable, nature CDR is tested, can be deployed now and can yield benefits for nature and people.

“Nature-based and engineered CDR can be deployed synergistically, including through investment portfolios that balance the conditions of feasibility, durability, and sustainability,” said Matthew Brander, professor of carbon accounting at the University of Edinburgh Business School. “Engineered novel CDR methods offer higher durability and lower reversal risks. However, conventional nature-based CDR methods that rely on storing carbon in vegetation and soil are the most immediately deployable methods at scale, and costs are comparatively low. It’s clear that high-tech and natural CDR methods can complement—not compete with—one another.”

The authors demonstrate that a balanced, comprehensive approach to investments in all forms of CDR offers the best prospect of meeting the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement in the context of sustainable development.

What is CDR?

The authors of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) define CDR as human "activities removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and durably storing it in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products."

CDR is classified according to how it captures carbon (for example, through photosynthesis or inorganic chemistry); where the carbon is stored (for example, land or sea); and the way in which it is stored, which can include plants and trees, soil, deep underground rock formations, minerals and the ocean floor.

The most successful CDR methods demonstrate readiness, feasibility, and the ability to remove a large amount of carbon without delay; sustainability, including the delivery of social and environmental benefits; and the durability of storage over the long term. Currently, no single CDR technique optimizes all three of these conditions and can sustain them over long periods of time.

“Engineered CDR is extremely expensive and will require huge amounts of cheap renewable energy, along with years of investment in research and development, before it’s ready to scale.” said Peter Ellis, the global director of natural climate solutions science at The Nature Conservancy. “In contrast, nature-based CDR is cheap and powered by photosynthesis, which has been in research and development in efficient self-replicating prototypes called plants for 3 billion years.”

The risk that stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere (e.g., through hazards, fire, pests or logging) is a key consideration in the CDR debate. Plans to store carbon in rocks, for example, are risky early on, before the carbon successfully hardens into minerals (mineralization). Over time, however, the risk of this CDR approach failing is significantly reduced. At the same time, natural approaches to CDR face different types and levels of risk over time. Not all newly planted ecosystems, for example, survive, and, even after these ecosystems are successfully established, they are vulnerable to unexpected human activities or the impacts of climate change, including fire, which releases carbon stored in wood back into the atmosphere.

“Policymakers and investors should encourage a balanced, comprehensive approach to investments in both nature- and tech-based CDR,” said Streck. “A balanced portfolio mitigates against risks of any one strategy and is most likely to make meaningful contributions toward achieving Paris Agreement goals.”

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Journal

Climate Policy

TWO

10.1080/14693062.2025.2501267 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Considering durability in carbon dioxide removal strategies for climate change mitigation

Article Publication Date

10-Jun-2025

 

Researchers build a better dental implant

Preclinical study demonstrates a new ‘smart’ implant and minimally invasive surgery to better retain feel and function of natural teeth

Tufts University

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From left to right: Study co-authors Subhashis Ghosh, Jake Jinkun Chen, and Siddhartha Das in Chen’s lab at Tufts’ Biomedical Research and Public Health Building.

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Credit: Jenna Schad/Tufts University

Each year, millions of people in the U.S. get dental implants as a long-term, natural-looking fix for missing teeth. But traditional implants don’t fully mimic real teeth.

Researchers from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and Tufts University School of Medicine recently described a new approach to dental implants that that could better replicate how natural teeth feel and function. Their study, published in Scientific Reports, shows early success with both a “smart” implant and a new gentler surgical technique in rodents.  

“Natural teeth connect to the jawbone through soft tissue rich in nerves, which help sense pressure and texture and guide how we chew and speak. Implants lack that sensory feedback,” says Jake Jinkun Chen, DI09, a professor of periodontology and director of the Division of Oral Biology at the School of Dental Medicine and the senior author on the study.

Traditional dental implants use a titanium post that fuses directly to the jawbone to support a ceramic crown, and the surgery often cuts or damages nearby nerves. To tie these inert pieces of metal into the body’s sensory system, the Tufts team developed an implant wrapped in an innovative biodegradable coating. This coating contains stem cells and a special protein that helps them multiply and turn into nerve tissue. As the coating dissolves during the healing process, it releases the stem cells and protein, fueling the growth of new nerve tissue around the implant.

The coating also contains tiny, rubbery particles that act like memory foam. Compressed so that the implant is smaller than the missing tooth when it’s first inserted, these nanofibers gently expand once in place until the implant snugly fits the socket. This allows for a new minimally invasive procedure that preserves existing nerve endings in the tissue around the implant.

“This new implant and minimally invasive technique should help reconnect nerves, allowing the implant to ‘talk’ to the brain much like a real tooth,” explains Chen. “This breakthrough also could transform other types of bone implants, like those used in hip replacements or fracture repair.”

Six weeks after surgery, the implants stayed firmly in place in rats, with no signs of inflammation or rejection. “Imaging revealed a distinct space between the implant and the bone, suggesting that the implant had been integrated through soft tissue rather than the traditional fusion with the bone,” says Chen. This may restore the nerves around it.

The research was conducted by Chen and School of Dental Medicine faculty Qisheng Tu and Zoe Zhu, as well as postdoctoral scholars Siddhartha Das (lead author) and Subhashis Ghosh at Tufts University School of Medicine.

These initial results are promising, but it will take more studies and time—for example, research in larger animal models to look at outcomes, including safety and efficacy—before trials can begin in human volunteers.

The researchers’ next step will be a preclinical study to see if brain activity confirms that the new nerves surrounding the prototype implant indeed relay sensory information.

Citation: Research reported in this article was supported by the National Institutes of Health under award numbers RO1DK131444, R01DE030074, R01DE025681, and R01DE032006. Complete information on authors, funders, methodology, limitations, and conflicts of interest is available in the published paper. 

Disclaimer: The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.  

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Journal

Scientific Reports

TWO

10.1038/s41598-025-99923-8 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Surgical considerations towards inducing proprioceptive feedback in dental implants