VR CPR training puts a learner in a headset, in front of a collapsed person, and asks them to act: check the scene, call for help, start compressions and use an AED.
The companies below build those experiences, either as ready-made apps for Meta Quest and Pico headsets or as custom programs for Red Cross societies, ambulance services, hospitals and employers. The appeal is simple: a realistic emergency can be repeated as many times as needed, in a classroom, a break room or at home, without booking a full instructor-led session every time.
Buyers range from employers wanting VR first aid training for staff, to hospitals running VR BLS training and VR ACLS training for clinical teams, to charities, EMS services and military units with their own scenarios.
This guide covers companies with verified, published work in VR and XR first aid, CPR, BLS, ACLS and emergency response training. Each entry explains what the company has actually built, who it was for and where it is based, so you can shortlist partners for a workplace first aid rollout, a lay responder program or a clinical resuscitation curriculum.
| Company | Headquarters | Best For | Signature Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| YORD | Prague and New York | Custom Red Cross and NGO CPR courses | VR CPR Training for the Slovak Red Cross |
| Virtual Life Support | Netherlands | Ready-made BLS and AED training | Hand-tracked CPR app for Quest and Pico |
| Dual Good Health | London, UK | Multi-course life support libraries | BLS, ALS and pediatric life support in VR |
| SimX | United States | Team ACLS and code practice | ACLS Knowledge Update scenario |
| Start Beyond | Sydney, Australia | Accredited first aid course redesign | SJx for St John Ambulance Victoria |
| MedCognition | San Antonio, Texas | EMS and military patient simulation | PerSim holographic patients |
| UNIT9 | London, UK | Public CPR awareness campaigns | Lifesaver VR for Resuscitation Council UK |
| Studio Evil | Bologna, Italy | Manikin-linked CPR games | VR-CPR Personal Edition with IRC Edu |
| Real Response | Melbourne, Australia | Trauma and mass casualty rehearsal | BlueRoom XR mixed reality platform |
| GWPro | Dubai, UAE | Workplace first aid in a safety catalog | First Aid VR module |
| Stereoscape | Helsinki, Finland | Bespoke first aid scenarios | Car accident first aid VR for PrimaSafe |
YORD is a creative technology studio for AI and XR experiences, founded in 2019 by Adam Rajnoha (CEO) and David Maťák (CTO), with offices in Prague and New York. The team of 35+ has delivered more than 200 projects for brands including Apple, Meta, LEGO and Bentley, and its site lists wins at the XR Awards (Best XR Retail Solution 2023), the VR Awards (Top VR Experience of the Year 2024) and the Auggie Awards (Best Societal Impact 2026). Training is one of its core practice areas, alongside AI avatars, AR marketing and real-time 3D.
Its most relevant project here is VR CPR Training, designed and developed for the Slovak Red Cross. The brief was to create a realistic, immersive environment that accurately simulates performing CPR on a real person. YORD built a detailed virtual manikin on which learners practice chest compressions and rescue breaths, then surrounded it with the things that make a real emergency stressful: other people in the scene and background noise. The headset course combines 3D simulations, interactions, sounds, images and tests, and is aimed at students, health organizations and the general public, particularly people who lack easy access to traditional equipment or instructors.
The homepage also carries a testimonial from Miriam Madunická, Director of Red Cross: “Simulations were executed so perfectly that users feel deeply immersed, almost as if they were interacting with the real solution itself.” Beyond CPR, YORD’s training work includes a VR and AI soft skills program for ČPP that reported a 275% confidence boost, and an educational VR game for the City of Cupertino played by 500+ people.
Best for: Red Cross societies, NGOs and training bodies that want a custom, branded virtual reality CPR training course rather than an off-the-shelf app.
Virtual Life Support is the CPR training application from VR Lab B.V., a Netherlands company that has been building VR, AR and mixed reality solutions since 2017. The product has one job: preparing people to perform CPR in the real world. VR Lab’s own framing is that classroom courses build technique, but no amount of classroom training fully prepares someone for finding an unconscious person on the ground.
The app trains the full basic life support algorithm according to current guidelines. Its store listing states alignment with ERC, Dutch Resuscitation Council (NRR) and AHA BLS guidelines. Learners assess the scene, recognize cardiac arrest, call for help and perform compressions, with a virtual AED giving authentic audio and visual prompts. Hand tracking removes the controllers so users practice natural CPR movements, and the software measures performance and gives immediate feedback on CPR quality.
It runs on Meta Quest and Pico Enterprise headsets and is sold into three segments: public and workplace, education, and healthcare. VR Lab works through partners including VR Expert (XR hardware and software), VIL (a European XR platform for schools), Hippocampus (a healthcare and safety training company) and Putman XR Consulting, and it is also distributed through enterprise app libraries such as ArborXR and Immerse.
Best for: schools, employers and first aid providers who want a ready-made, guideline-based VR BLS training and AED module they can deploy on standalone headsets.
Dual Good Health is a London company whose stated mission is to help more people learn how to save lives through immersive technology. It is led by CEO Anna Stoilova, who has worked in immersive technology since 2015, and CTO Morgan Page, a software developer with two decades of experience and a games background.
Its catalog is one of the broadest in this niche. The site lists VR modules for basic life support, advanced life support, pediatric life support, CPR training and first aid training, plus OB hemorrhage and an auscultation trainer. The company describes its products as covering first aid, CPR, BLS, ACLS and other life support scenarios for both healthcare and enterprise buyers. The apps run on Meta Quest, and Dual Good Health is an official Oculus ISV partner.
Clinical credibility comes from a medical advisory board with representatives from BPP, the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Sheffield, and from an academic partnership with the Barts Institute at Queen Mary University of London.
The company reports that research there found its VR training scored better than offline training for ease of use, content and overall experience. Named clients include Qatar Airways, Barts Health and Enlisted Heroes.
Best for: hospitals, airlines and corporate safety teams that want several life support courses from one vendor on a single headset platform.
SimX builds a VR medical training and simulation platform used by clinical educators, hospitals and military organizations, and it describes its library as the largest collection of simulated patient encounters in the world. For resuscitation training, the key asset is its scenario marketplace. The ACLS Knowledge Update scenario places learners in an emergency department with a 56-year-old man who progresses through symptomatic bradycardia, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation and pulseless electrical activity. Participants practice compressions, medications, electrical therapy and airway management using current ACLS and BLS guidelines.
The SimX Virtual Manikin lets educators build their own encounters and change demographics, environments, vitals, animations, labs and diagnoses in real time. Its adult scenario covers chest pain presentations including STEMI, pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest, while a pediatric version covers respiratory distress. Patented multiplayer technology lets several learners work the same code as a team, whether they are in one room or in different locations.
Customers named on the site include the US Air Force, Kaiser Permanente, Children’s National Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, NYU Langone and Ohio State University. Laerdal, the resuscitation training manufacturer, lists SimX within its virtual simulation offerings, and SimX says it has distributors in more than 25 countries.
Best for: nursing schools, residency programs and hospital simulation centers running team-based VR ACLS training and code blue practice.
Start Beyond, formerly Start VR, describes itself as Australia’s leading VR and AR immersive learning studio, with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Its client list includes Woolworths, CommBank, UTS, ANSTO and Qantas, but its best-known healthcare project is SJx, built with St John Ambulance Victoria.
SJx launched in 2019 as a VR cardiac arrest and first aid training service. It covers CPR, first aid and emergency response modules, including infection control and the DRSABCD action plan used in Australian first aid, and it is delivered across VR headsets, mobile devices and desktop so learners can use whatever they have access to. According to Start Beyond’s case study, the program cut training time by 50% while improving knowledge retention, now produces thousands of fully accredited graduates a month, and has expanded from Victoria to a national rollout across Australia.
What makes SJx notable is that it sits inside an accredited first aid pathway rather than replacing it. The immersive modules handle theory and scenario practice, while certification remains with St John. That blended model matches what resuscitation councils recommend.
Best for: first aid training organizations that want to rebuild an accredited course around immersive, self-paced VR first aid training modules.
MedCognition, based in San Antonio, Texas, takes a mixed reality approach. Its PerSim platform uses Microsoft HoloLens to project lifelike holographic patients into the learner’s real working environment, so paramedics can train in their own ambulance or station rather than in a simulated room. The system offers more than 10,000 case combinations spanning adult, pediatric, obstetric and geriatric patients, and it covers medical, trauma and HazMat training.
Because the patient appears in the real room, PerSim works well for team drills and multi-patient scenarios, and it is portable enough to take to rural services or field units. One Sumner County EMS chief quoted on the site describes the shift as moving “from pretend Fisher-Price style education with lifeless rubber mannequins to medically accurate and realistic augmented reality training.”
Users listed by the company include UC Irvine Health, the US Army, the Air Force, the NIH and a range of community colleges and EMS agencies. MedCognition notes that it has been contracted by the Department of Defense and was a 2018 World Innovation Awards winner.
Best for: EMS agencies, fire departments and military medical units that want realistic patient assessment and emergency response practice in their own environment.
UNIT9 is a global experiential and production studio with offices in London, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and Florence, known for brand experiences, films, games and digital innovation. Its entry in this niche is Lifesaver VR, created for the Resuscitation Council UK and released in October 2017.
Lifesaver VR is an interactive story built around live-action 360-degree film. The viewer is dropped into an emergency and has to act, performing real chest compressions on a cushion while the app gives feedback on their technique. It was designed to reach people who would never sign up for a first aid class, and it ran on Google Cardboard with iOS and Android phones, which kept the hardware barrier very low.
UNIT9’s project page reports that testing with teenagers raised CPR confidence from 38% to 85%, and that every participant said they were more likely to perform CPR in an emergency. The work picked up an FWA award. Its goal is bystander engagement, not clinical skills assessment.
Best for: charities, health campaigns and public bodies that want a high-profile awareness piece that gets bystanders to act.
Studio Evil is a game development studio in Bologna, Italy, with commercial titles on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Steam and a B2B division for custom interactive experiences. Its site presents Relive, a sci-fi first-person adventure created to encourage teenagers and adults to learn CPR, as part of its portfolio.
The studio is also listed with IRC Edu as developer and publisher of VR-CPR Personal Edition on Steam, released in May 2019. That application places learners in three photorealistic scenarios, set in a hospital, out of hospital and with a pediatric patient, where they perform chest compressions on a manikin and receive real-time performance feedback. It walks users through the BLSD sequence, from checking consciousness and breathing to calling for help, giving CPR and using an AED, and it recreates real AED interfaces and voice prompts in partnership with AED manufacturers.
Pairing a physical manikin with the headset is important in this category, because it keeps the hands-on compression practice that resuscitation councils insist on while adding the realism of a scene.
Best for: resuscitation councils and training centers that want a game studio partner for a manikin-linked VR or serious game CPR product.
Real Response is an Australian simulation-based training company with locations in Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong, Brisbane, Townsville, Adelaide, Canberra and Gladstone. It delivers first aid, mental health, tactical medicine and fire safety courses, and its trainers bring direct first responder experience.
Its extended reality arm, BlueRoom XR, is built by an in-house team of software engineers, XR developers and 3D artists. BlueRoom is a mixed reality training platform that lets trainers run complex emergency scenarios from a mission control interface and monitor learner performance, so medics can rehearse in hazardous environments without physically recreating them. Real Response has also developed Real MCI, a VR program for training first responders to assess, treat and triage casualties at a mass casualty incident.
For buyers, the strength here is that the technology sits alongside a live training business. Real Response runs its own first aid and tactical trauma courses, so its XR work is shaped by instructors who teach in person every week.
Best for: defense, emergency services and high-risk workplace teams that need trauma and mass casualty rehearsal on top of standard first aid.
GWPro, operated by GVR Training Computer Software in Dubai, is a VR training platform for health, safety and occupational learning. Its catalog of 20+ simulators is designed around OSHA and NEBOSH standards and covers topics such as confined space entry, work at height, forklifts, electrical safety, fire safety, lockout tagout and hot work.
First aid is part of that catalog. The GWPro First Aid module, pitched as a way to provide first aid in your own workplace, lets learners practice CPR, bandaging and injury assessment in an industrial setting. The app store listing on Immerse shows it running single-user on Pico and Meta Quest headsets in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and GWPro says its wider catalog is available in more than 30 languages.
Customers cited on the site include Merit Ontario, POKE Vocational College and Contact North, and the company says its training runs in nearly 700 Belgian schools. It also distributes through PIXO VR and Immerse, which makes it easy to add first aid to an existing enterprise headset fleet.
Best for: industrial employers and vocational schools that want VR first aid training bundled with the rest of their VR safety curriculum.
Most of these products follow the same structure as a basic life support course, but move the scenario into a headset. The learner enters a scene such as a street, an office, a home or a hospital ward, checks for danger, assesses the patient, calls for help and starts compressions. Better apps add an AED with realistic voice prompts, plus bystanders, noise and time pressure.
There are three main ways the compression itself is handled. Hand-tracked apps such as Virtual Life Support follow the learner’s hands without controllers and score the movement. Manikin-linked systems such as VR-CPR pair the headset with a physical manikin, so the learner presses on something real while seeing the virtual scene. Headset-only and 360-degree experiences, like Lifesaver VR, focus on decisions and confidence rather than measured compression quality. Clinical platforms used for VR ACLS training add rhythm recognition, medications, defibrillation and team roles on top of the BLS sequence.
Results are usually captured inside the software: time to first compression, compression rate and depth where the hardware supports it, correct AED use, and the decisions made along the way.
A headset can recreate a crowded platform, a car crash or a deteriorating patient in a way a classroom cannot. Learners make mistakes, see the consequences and try again without any risk to a real person.
Every learner gets the same scenario, the same guideline-based steps and the same scoring. That matters for employers and hospital systems training many people to one standard.
Standalone headsets can be shipped to remote sites, used in a break room or booked by a learner between shifts. SJx shows how this can shorten classroom time while keeping the accredited assessment.
The biggest barrier in a real cardiac arrest is often hesitation. Immersive scenarios build recognition and confidence, which is why campaigns like Lifesaver VR focus on getting bystanders to start compressions.
No, and a responsible vendor will say so. The 2025 American Heart Association guidelines on resuscitation education say it may be reasonable to use VR to support knowledge acquisition in BLS and ALS training, but that VR should not be used for CPR skill acquisition. The same guidelines strongly recommend real-time feedback devices during CPR training. The European Resuscitation Council 2025 education guidelines, published by the Resuscitation Council UK, similarly recommend gamified learning, blended learning and augmented reality as components of courses, alongside real-time feedback devices for compression practice. In practice, VR first aid training should complement, not replace, an accredited hands-on course from a recognized provider. The strongest programs, such as SJx, use immersive modules for scenarios and decision-making and keep certification with the accrediting body.
If your goal includes compression quality, look for a solution that pairs VR with a manikin or feedback device, or plan to run hands-on practice separately. Manikin-linked tools such as VR-CPR, or hand-tracked apps with compression feedback, still need to be checked against your certifying body’s requirements. For awareness campaigns or decision-making drills, headset-only or 360-degree experiences can work well, as Lifesaver VR showed with teenagers.
Ready-made modules from providers like Virtual Life Support, Dual Good Health or GWPro are faster to deploy and cheaper per learner, which suits schools and workplaces. A custom virtual reality CPR training program from a studio such as YORD, Start Beyond or Stereoscape makes sense when you need your own branding, local protocols, language or a specific scenario, for example a Red Cross society with national guidelines or a provider teaching road accident response.
Lay responders need short, confidence-building scenarios on inexpensive standalone headsets. Clinicians need ACLS algorithms, rhythm recognition and team roles, which is where SimX and MedCognition are stronger, and hospitals buying BLS VR training for hospital staff should check that scenarios match their own code protocols. EMS and military teams benefit from trauma, triage and mass casualty rehearsal of the kind Real Response and MedCognition focus on. Match the vendor’s clinical depth to your learners, and ask which guidelines their content follows and how often it is updated when guidelines change.
A real resuscitation is a team effort, so hospital and EMS buyers should ask whether several learners can work the same scenario together, in one room or remotely, and whether the instructor can watch, pause and debrief.
Ask what the software records and how it reports. Useful measures include scenario completion, time to first compression, compression quality where hardware allows, correct AED use and pre and post confidence or knowledge scores. Vendors with published research or pilot data make the business case easier.
Licensed apps are usually priced per headset or per learner, while custom builds are quoted as projects that vary widely with scope, scenarios and languages. Factor in headsets, device management, instructor time for debriefs and the accredited hands-on session that still has to happen. Ask for pilot pricing and outcome data, such as confidence or knowledge retention results, before committing to a full rollout.
It uses a virtual reality headset to place learners in a simulated cardiac arrest, where they assess the scene, call for help, perform chest compressions and use an AED. Depending on the product, compressions are tracked by hand tracking, a physical manikin or a feedback device. It is used to teach and refresh basic life support for the public, workplaces and healthcare staff, usually alongside a traditional course.
Generally not on its own. Recognized certifications from bodies such as the American Heart Association and the Red Cross still require a hands-on skills check with a manikin. Current AHA guidance supports VR for building knowledge in BLS and ALS courses but not for CPR skill acquisition. Most programs use VR for theory and scenarios and then complete certification in an in-person or blended skills session.
VR is good at building recognition, decision-making and confidence, and vendors and studies report gains in engagement and knowledge. Compression quality is a different matter, and resuscitation guidelines recommend real-time feedback devices and hands-on practice for that skill. The most effective programs combine immersive scenarios with manikin practice and an instructor-led assessment.
Yes. Hospitals use VR BLS training and VR ACLS training to give staff extra practice between formal certification courses, often as part of nurse onboarding or code team refreshers. Clinical platforms add multiplayer scenarios, rhythm recognition and instructor control. These sessions support, rather than replace, the hands-on BLS and ACLS courses that hospitals require for credentialing.
VR CPR training is now a practical tool for reaching more people with realistic emergency practice, from bystanders and employees to paramedics and hospital code teams. The providers above range from custom studios building programs for Red Cross societies and ambulance services to specialist vendors with ready-made BLS, ACLS and mass casualty scenarios.
Whichever route you take, treat immersive training as a way to build recognition, decision-making and willingness to act, and keep accredited hands-on certification at the center of your program. For broader VR medical training context, see our guide to the best VR companies for medical simulation and our roundup of AR and VR companies for public safety and emergency services.
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