Discover how Vantari VR is revolutionising medical training with cutting-edge VR technology, enabling virtual training and education for healthcare professionals.
Vantari VR’s success story
Vantari VR is a pioneer in virtual reality training and education for healthcare professionals. The company was founded by two physicians in 2017 to be the flight simulator for medical training. The company’s success saw it named the 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards New South Wales Embracing Innovation Winner.
We spoke with Co-CEO Dr. Nishanth Krishnananthan about the growth of the business, from a local concept to a global company.
A mission to eliminate medical error
Dr. Nishanth Krishnananthan, Co-CEO of Vantari VR, laughs as he remembers his journey into healthcare. “My mum, sister, and multiple first cousins are all doctors. So, it was almost inevitable I’d go into medicine!”
What wasn’t inevitable was that he would start a virtual reality technology company. Dr. Krishnananthan spent 10 years in surgery before founding Vantari VR to solve a problem he’d encountered firsthand.
“I love medicine but there are big gaps in how we are trained to perform procedures.”
– Dr. Krishnananthan, Co-CEO of Vantari VR
Training for medical procedures often follows a traditional apprenticeship model – ‘see one, do one, teach one’. Not only is it subjective, but there are huge amounts of skill decay if doctors don’t continue to perform procedures.
This is what happened to Dr. Krishnananthan. In one of his registrar training positions, he got a late night call from the emergency department at a regional hospital. They had a patient who couldn’t be intubated and needed him to perform an urgent surgical airway procedure. The problem? That he last practiced the procedure 4 years ago on an animal model in a simulation workshop. And he’d never done it on a real person.
The experience was immensely stressful and showed the limits of the existing medical training regime. Dr. Krishnananthan was determined to find a solution.
How VR technology takes medical training to new heights
During a research fellowship in Melbourne, Dr. Krishnananthan started looking at how pilots were trained in aviation. This raised a simple but important question.
“Pilots spend thousands of hours in a simulator before ever flying a plane. Why can’t we train healthcare professionals the same way? Why can’t we be the pilots of healthcare?”
– Dr. Krishnananthan, Co-CEO of Vantari VR
This turned out to be the business inspiration behind Vantari VR.
Dr. Krishnananthan connected with his medical colleague and close friend, Dr. Vijay Paul, an emergency physician. Together, they explored ways of using technology to improve medical training. Uniting virtual reality (VR) and healthcare was central to this vision.
Daniel Paull, a VR expert with over 30 years of experience in immersive technology, joined the team as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In December 2017, the three of them co-founded Vantari VR.
Vantari VR is the “flight simulator for doctors,” says Dr. Krishnananthan. “We help clinicians, nurses and students practice life-saving procedures in a safe, scalable VR environment in order to eliminate medical error and save lives.”
With a strong core mission, the company set out to democratise healthcare education and help future proof medical procedural training for hospitals not just in metropolitan centres, but also in regional hospitals and areas of need.
Scaling a global business, virtually
In 2018, Vantari VR started working with some prestigious hospitals in Australia, including Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Westmead Hospital. Despite the clear benefit of a technology such as VR, change management was tough for healthcare institutions who were used to traditional models of training. Then 2019 happened. And everything changed.
“When the pandemic hit, we saw a dramatic shift,” says Dr. Krishnananthan. “The healthcare industry had to adjust to hybrid or virtual models almost overnight. People couldn’t train the same way anymore.”
As a fully virtual platform, Vantari VR was in a good position for this transition.
Interest in the platform soon spread across Australia, and beyond. Today, Vantari VR works with 36 institutions globally, including renowned hospitals in the US including Harvard BIDMC, Yale, Johns Hopkins and Mount Sinai. Medical device and pharmaceutical organisations have also taken up the technology, with the likes of Boston Scientific, Enable CV, Fujifilm Sonosite, Novo Nordisk etc.
Breaking into the North American healthcare market has been a pivotal step for Vantari VR’s business growth. Focusing on anaesthesia, EM, critical care and cardiology training has allowed Vantari VR to maximise the exposure and accessibility of the platform.
Making virtual reality training an industry standard
“A key part of our vision is to become the gold standard in healthcare,” says Dr. Krishnananthan. “We already like to call our VR system a hospital in a backpack, and in five years, we want VR to be a part of every doctor, nurse and student’s training toolkit.”
“Evidence-based medicine is a key part of our mission,” says Dr. Krishnananthan. Vantari VR’s sophisticated software platform is backed by research and has been shown to reduce medical error by 40%, improve performance by 32% and adherence to safety and hygiene by 39% when compared to traditional modalities of training.
Doctors can also claim CPD/CME on Vantari VR’s platform through the ANZ College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM). In addition, Vantari VR has also partnered with Inteleos, the World’s largest accreditation body for Ultrasound training with 150,000+ members globally who can now access Vantari VR’s platform to get accredited in VR instead of travelling to testing centres.
The future of VR technology in healthcare
Vantari VR plans to build on their strong foundation to expand its reach into more international markets as well as expand its library of modules. Healthcare is a huge industry with 45+ specialties and even more subspecialties. There are hundreds of procedures with unique protocols, scenarios and complications.
“We have barely scratched the surface of the true potential of VR. And with the huge technological advancements with AI in 2025, we can go faster than ever and provide more on demand content for physicians.”
From training to treatment, Vantari VR can make a massive impact on the standards of education in the medical industry.
“I became a doctor to help people. But I could only help one patient at a time. Growing Vantari VR means we can impact thousands of lives,” says Dr. Krishnananthan.
The lessons of Vantari VR’s story
While every business’ journey is unique, Vantari VR’s story has some useful lessons for any business leader.
Different industries can provide inspiration
Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected sources. In Vantari VR’s case, Dr. Krishnananthan saw a parallel in the way pilots train and realised he could apply it to medical training.
Great things happen when you combine subject matter expertise with technology skills
Two of Vantari VR’s founders are clinicians with first-hand domain experience of the challenge they sought to overcome. When they met Daniel Paull, a technology leader with 30 years of experience in programming, VR and AR, computer vision and AI, they were able to marry their skills to bring the Vantari VR vision to reality.
Location is no barrier
Vantari VR’s operations are spread across Australia and the US, with Headquarters in Sydney and Seattle, and the company partners with hospitals in several global regions. But large distances and different time zones haven’t stopped the team from collaborating with each other. Learn how Vantari VR uses technology to power its global growth.
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Foto: Vantari VR, 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards New South Wales Embracing Innovation Winner
