CISCRP - CenarioVR

The Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public, patients, medical/research communities, the media, and policy makers about clinical research and the role each party plays in the process.

As part of CISCRP’s commitment to engaging and building relationships with these stakeholders, they launched the AWARE for All program in 2015 —free clinical research education health fairs that include informational exhibits featuring community groups, health associations research centers, local physician and patient speakers, as well as receptions to honor clinical research participants. AWARE for All events are hosted several times each year in different cities around the country.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down conferences and events globally, CISCRP reached out to llumina Interactive Learning for a way to recreate their July 2020 AWARE for All—Chicago event digitally. CISCRP sought to provide an online experience where participants could still ask questions and get information from exhibitors about specific illnesses and clinical trials. To provide value to the exhibitors and sponsors, the solution needed to create an engaging way for exhibitors to provide information about their organization and current clinical research studies.

Illumina Interactive created an immersive, 360° virtual reality health fair experience, built with CenarioVR®, a virtual reality course authoring application.

The VR health fair program creates an engaging interactive experience where participants can visit over 30 virtual sponsor and exhibitor booths, learn about each exhibitor via posters, text, and short introductory videos, and visit the CISCRP theater to view a series of short videos about clinical research trials.

In order to meet the tight timeline of five weeks until the event, development time was significantly reduced by using stock photos for the main event hall and theater along with eLearning Brothers Cutout People character images and stock audio clips to add background crowd effects.

Each of the sponsors and exhibitors also submitted their own videos to be embedded into their virtual exhibit booth. At each booth, visitors can click on “Ask Questions” and “Read Poster” buttons for more information or view short introductory videos.

The final solution was published in HTML5 and is designed primarily for browser access on desktop computers and tablets. Due to the tight timeline and the fact that CISCRP is hosting the solution themselves, HTML5 made the most sense for rapid deployment of the first event. However, the virtual event can also be accessed on smartphones, as well as VR headsets.

CISCRP will be hosting four additional virtual health fairs in 2020 and plans to work with Illumina to continuously enhance the experience and add more immersive features as well as capture and analyze data about users’ experiences.

There was no dropoff in exhibitor participation moving from in-person to online. Over 30 exhibitors participated in the first virtual health fair in July 2020, on par with CISCRP’s average in-person event sponsorship. Based on exhibitor feedback, the organization expects a 66% increase in exhibitors for the next virtual health fair, surpassing their in-person event average.

The virtual health fair experience was introduced during a live webinar and will remain live on CISCRP’s site, which provides the opportunity for continued engagement past the event date. Visitors can come back to a booth at any time to review resources and watch videos at their own pace. This is a huge value-add for exhibitors.

Visitors to the virtual experience said that “the exhibit hall looks absolutely amazing” and it was “easy to navigate—a phenomenal virtual experience!”

CISCRP’s national sponsors were also impressed, saying “I loved this new format. Very innovative!” and “We are continuously impressed with how CISCRP and Illumina Interactive are truly leading in this space of awareness, education, and action.”