Isala and Van Weel-Bethesda are training nurses with Mixed Reality. Two hospitals, one conclusion: practicing with TrueSim works.

• Sector Hospital care
• Audience Student and qualified nurses
• Application ABCDE methodology, clinical reasoning
• Platform TrueSim on Meta Quest 3

The challenge

Nurses are under pressure. High workloads, staff shortages and increasingly complex care leave little room for proper supervision of students or continued professional development. Yet students need training. Qualified nurses need to stay sharp. Especially when it comes to acute situations where mistakes can be fatal.

Two Dutch hospitals were looking for a way to create more learning time without adding pressure to the ward. They found TrueSim.

Isala - Zwolle
Students who step up and show what they can do

sala is one of the largest hospitals in the Netherlands, with thirteen learning wards where MBO and HBO nursing students complete their clinical placements. The Isala Academy noticed that students arrived with vastly different levels of preparation, while supervisors had little time to compensate for that gap.

Two years ago, Isala started using TrueSim. Students practise ABCDE scenarios in small groups using the Meta Quest 3 headset. One student wears the headset while the others watch on a large shared screen. A scenario takes around twenty minutes, followed by a structured debrief led by the ward supervisor.

"We could just see that the group was getting really good at clinical reasoning. We genuinely felt that TrueSim had a big part in that."

Ward supervisor, Isala

Supervisors report that students show more initiative on the ward, arrive better prepared and engage more actively in their own learning. Practising rare or high-stakes situations that rarely occur in daily clinical life gives students a head start that is difficult to create any other way.

"On the ward they sometimes find it hard to step forward, but here they do. Because it is a practice situation, in a small group."

Ward supervisor, Isala

Van Weel-Bethesda Hospital, Dirksland
Continuing education that fits around the ward

Van Weel-Bethesda is a smaller hospital that works bottom-up. The Acute Admissions Ward wanted to better prepare its nurses for acute and potentially life-threatening situations. After a year working with different software and hardware, the team chose TrueSim.

Training sessions are scheduled just before the evening shift or right after the day shift. Sessions last around thirty minutes, with groups of up to three nurses guided by two supervisors. Scenarios are selected to match what the ward is dealing with at that moment.

"By also practising rare situations, nurses build the confidence to act faster and more decisively in real life."

Ward supervisor, Van Weel-Bethesda

A key advantage: no more external training venues. Nurses train on their own ward, during working hours. That makes education more efficient and cost-effective over time. From spring 2026, TrueSim is permanently embedded in the team's scheduled study days.

What TrueSim delivers

This success story is based on independent research by the Research Group for ICT Innovation in Healthcare (Hogeschool Windesheim), conducted in collaboration with Isala, Saxion, Deltion College and Hogeschool VIAA, supported by TechYourFuture. Published March 2026.