The VRCARE project is moving from development into practice, exploring how Virtual Reality (VR) can become a meaningful educational tool for the healthcare, elderly care and childcare sectors.
VRCARE, “Modernizing Healthcare Pedagogy with Virtual Reality for Interaction, Ethics, Stimulation and Sensory” — Project Code: 2024-1-FI01-KA220-VET-000249151 — is co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ KA220-VET programme.
Within the project, realistic scenarios have been developed to place learners and professionals in situations they may encounter in their everyday work. In a safe virtual environment, they can observe, make decisions and reflect on issues such as communication, dignity, ethical decision-making and person-centred care.
Recent pilot activities across different European countries have brought the VRCARE tools into direct contact with educators, learners, professionals and care organisations. The experience gained through these pilots shows that VR can make complex and often abstract issues more experiential and easier to understand, while also highlighting the importance of appropriate preparation, technical support and user familiarisation.
VRCARE aims to develop 72 real-life scenarios and 12 VR scenarios, together with a Virtual Learning Environment and the VRCARE Library, ensuring that the project’s educational resources can continue to be used by educators and care professionals beyond the project’s lifetime.
As the project’s technical and dissemination partner, p-consulting.gr contributes both to the technical development and digital presence of VRCARE and to the communication and dissemination of its activities and results, supporting the transfer of innovation from the project level into educational and professional practice.
The next important milestone for the consortium will be the next Transnational Project Meeting, which will take place in Patras at the end of September 2026. The partners will have the opportunity to review the progress made so far, discuss the results of the pilot activities and coordinate the next steps towards the completion and further uptake of the VRCARE results.
VRCARE demonstrates that Virtual Reality is more than an impressive technological tool. When designed around real needs, it can bridge the gap between theory and practice and better prepare professionals for real-life care situations.
