Strengthening systems for health equity with VR

Bunjalung woman, Emma Walke is Sydney Medical School’s Head of Indigenous Health, and Lismore University Centre for Rural Health’s Academic Lead for Aboriginal Health. Two of the projects she is working on involve the use of virtual reality. Walke is also co-leading a project that works with eight different communities and health services around Australia to develop a validated patient experience measure fit for Aboriginal health services. 

This project validates outcomes by including consumer experience. Its purpose is to develop a patient reported experience measure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples accessing primary health care.

Walke and the team are translating the experiences of the rural and remote communities into a virtual reality training tool. This innovative immersive learning tool is about helping to build medical students’ appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ experiences of racism in the health care system.

It will and is shaping the students’ understanding of what people actually feel and experience. It confronts the endemic issues of institutional racism  in order to build a less biased, more caring and competent workforce.

Emma Walke was a part of the AHMRC Ethics Committee who received the Reconciliation Australia national award for ‘Outstanding examples of Governance in Indigenous led non-incorporated initiatives’ along with Dr Michael Doyle who chairs The Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW Human Research Ethics Committee.