From Ohio State Alumni Magazine
This research center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital are working together to create virtual reality training that will help staff calm patients.
As a trained dancer and veteran of Ohio State’s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, John Luna ’17 MFA knows how pairing body movement, technology and imagination can create meaningful ways to help people.
“There’s an improvisational, exploratory, body-centered way of understanding things that makes for a better understanding of each other,” says Luna, who now works in the research division at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. “I make interactive media tools and apps for kids, their families and health care providers. The work has spanned from interventions that help with pain management to educational tools or exposure therapies.”
His new project is leading a partnership between Nationwide Children’s and ACCAD, where he interned during his years as an Ohio State grad student in dance. They’ll use virtual reality simulation to train hospital staff on how to de-escalate patients, both pediatric and adult, who are in crisis, a project funded by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
Read more in the Ohio State Alumni Magazine