February 4 marked the launch of the new ERTRAG project – “Extended Reality for the Transformation of Work in the Healthcare Industry.” Buying medical equipment from a catalog – previously unthinkable. However, the current practice of face-to-face sales meetings is reaching its limits in crises such as the coronavirus pandemic, as well as due to sustainability concerns. So how can innovative medical devices be made available to users in practices and clinics across Europe with less travel for manufacturers and users? To what extent and under what conditions can this be used to prepare purchasing decisions, and what does this mean for the employees involved on both sides? How can young professionals in medical training institutions learn about how to use the products in a way that is as realistic as possible? And what does this mean for the everyday work of employees and learners on both sides? Digital twins and their human-centered, ergonomically designed use play a central role here.

At the kickoff in Sankt Augustin, the ERTRAG representatives from the project partners Fraunhofer FIT, World of VR GmbH (Cologne), Stryker Trauma GmbH (Schönkirchen), Heidelberg University Hospital, and ILAG got to know each other better and organized the first steps of the upcoming work so that, from the outset, the ergonomic activities are interlinked with the technology development and future users are involved in the design of the work system based on human, technical, and organizational factors. Information from the supervising project management agency Karlsruhe (PTKA) was supplemented by Dr. Spangenberg. The ERTRAG consortium would like to thank PTKA for its friendly and helpful support, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for funding the project, and the European Union for co-financing it as part of the ESF Plus program “Future of Work.”

Further information: ilag.net/en/research/ertrag.