VR in Nursing Education: What the Latest Survey Shows

Virtual reality has moved from a pilot project in a corner of the sim lab to something nursing schools are budgeting for. A survey released in 2025 by Wolters Kluwer Health, run with the National League for Nursing (NLN), puts numbers on the shift.

What the survey found

The survey collected 307 responses from nursing program deans and faculty between July and October 2024. On virtual reality, three findings stand out:

• Current use of VR nearly doubled, from 15% of respondents in 2020 to 29% in 2024.
• 53% said they plan to use VR in the next 2 to 3 years.
• 60% of schools plan to increase their current investment in VR.

The same survey looked at generative AI, which is earlier in its adoption: 17% of respondents currently use it in their programs.

In plain terms: most programs that are not using VR yet expect to be soon, and the ones already using it plan to spend more.

Why programs are moving

The survey reports adoption, not reasons, so the following is our reading of what we hear from educators. Three pressures keep coming up:

• Placements are scarce. Students can finish a program without seeing a cardiac arrest or a rapidly deteriorating patient.
• Manikin time is limited. A high-fidelity session needs a room, a technician and a facilitator, so each student gets few turns.
• Consistency is hard. Two students on placement can have very different experiences. In simulation everyone meets the same patient.

The NCSBN National Simulation Study gave programs confidence that well-run simulation can carry real weight: it found that up to 50% of traditional clinical experience could be substituted with high-quality simulation in prelicensure core courses, under conditions comparable to the study. That study was not about VR specifically, but it set the bar for what good simulation needs to deliver.

What to look for in VR for nursing

If you are one of the 53% planning to adopt, these questions separate tools that change practice from tools that sit in a cupboard.

Does the patient react?

A scenario where vitals follow a script teaches students to wait for the script. Look for a patient engine where oxygen saturation drops if oxygen is not started, and recovers when the right action is taken.

Can students move?

Room-scale, six degrees of freedom (6DoF) means students walk to the bed, lean in and look at the monitor. That builds the habit of scanning the patient and the room together.

Is there a debrief students can learn from alone?

Facilitated debriefing remains the gold standard, but a timed, scored summary at the end of each run lets students practise between sessions.

Can a team run it together?

Emergencies are team events. Check whether several headsets can join one scenario with roles.

Does it fit your region?

Drug names, units, emergency numbers and resuscitation guidelines differ between Australia, the US and Asia. Content that uses the wrong ones creates friction for students and faculty.

Where Firsthand XR fits

We built Firsthand XR around those questions: a live patient engine, room-scale scenarios, scored debriefs, team sessions on the same network and regional packs for ANZCOR and AHA guidance. See the nursing education page for scenarios and curriculum mapping, or compare us fairly with UbiSim and Oxford Medical Simulation.