Virtual Reality & Healthcare — A New Future?
The arrival of Virtual Reality in people’s consciousness offers a new experience for headset users. It’s stimulating key human senses and helpful for cultural, scientific and professional purposes. It also brings opportunities for several markets such as education, the military and real estate. However, the impact for patients and medical professionals in the healthcare field is going to be outstanding
For those who don’t know about Virtual Reality, it’s a technology that enables people to be in an artificial digital world. It could be a “real world” or a fantasy one. This experience has both visual and hearing impact and the user can interact with the environment around him. Currently, this process is delivered by a Virtual Reality headset associated with a program that brings the creative side.
Health professionals are used to trying to discover how new technology could improve healthcare. After a few years and many trials, it seems that Virtual Reality could bring so many benefits for patients and healthcare providers soon.
Patient benefits
Aside from taking care of sick people, healthcare providers have a clear objective of administrating treatment which combines effectiveness and with avoiding side-effects. In most scenarios, medical therapy needs time and money to develop.
Perhaps surprisingly, Virtual Reality seems to be a solution in reducing the pain of a patient. As an immersive experience, could the patient leave his/her painful day-to-day and live emotions through an unpleasant moment?
For the Centre Leon Berard, a center specialized in fighting cancer, it’s a yes. According to them, Virtual Reality is a really good way to reduce anxiety and the patient’s stress. For a few years now they’ve been using this method as relaxation time before surgery, during which the patient can swim with a whale.
The pediatric service of the CHRU of Tours, France (regional university hospital center) with the help of Enfant Coeur Santé, Lions Club, has also set up a similar program. For them, Virtual Reality headsets (KIMO(c)) offer an immersive experience that brings education to children before chemotherapy. It’s a positive explanation of what the treatment is and involves. It combines games, challenges, and clinical hypnosis. The other benefit is minimizing anxiolytic use which is particularly interesting. Moreover, Virtual Reality could also be used as anesthesia by using hypnosis and helps reduce pain.
For the French start-up Lumeen, the idea is to bring a peaceful moment for EHPAD patients (accommodation for dependent elderly people). They set up a program that easily carries the user into different locations such as the Grand Canyon or through the savanna. This experience has a soothing effect on the patients.
Healthcare Provider benefits
Virtual Reality is experiencing a huge wave of enthusiasm in the healthcare industry. A few decades ago, this kind of technology was a dream for professional providers when Virtual Reality started to get a name.
Now it seems to deliver a range of opportunities for healthcare systems, from applications for current healthcare providers to training the next ones.
3Prime Group is specialized in healthcare new technology whose expertise is in tools such as application, web using and training- and they have their sights set firmly on an ambition to develop VR in healthcare. In 2018, they introduced their new VR tool to healthcare providers during the ESC Congress of Munich. The program called Cardiotouch Angina has been designed for cardiologists. It focuses on the patient’s life with angina and can help to have a better understanding of patient’s diseases by showing what are the effects without treatment.
Imagine a surgeon before an operation, using Virtual Reality to get a more precise idea of the patient’s anatomical structure. That could be very common in the very near future. It will enable surgeons to have a better understanding of what it will do thanks to the interactive mechanism of the tool. VR could help surgeons to anticipate all the surgery’s steps by viewing and interacting with the patient’s body virtually.
Now one of the most popular use is the ability to help future surgeons or other future healthcare providers to enhance their skills by using Virtual Reality.
For instance, the CHRU of Reims, France, acquired a simulator based on EyeSI(R), VrMagic system. This advanced technology allows the next generation of surgeons to train themselves in cataract surgery which is, each year, the most carried-out procedure in France. Students could improve their skills and become more confident by having better proficiency. The powerful tool challenges users by offering different scenarios including unexpected situations that reinforce the ability of the student. It’s a great frame for healthcare providers’education.
Patient education
Patients are more and more educated about healthcare. But there still are some diseases which are difficult to explain to them. Especially with cataract issues where several lenses made to resolve different problems exist. Virtual Reality could help healthcare providers in the patient’s informational step, to highlight the advantages of getting surgery and show what could be the result of having a certain type of intraocular lens. This way, the patient can decide to pay an overrun fee or not.
If all these benefits are expanded, they could have a deep and lasting impact on the healthcare system.
About this article
This article has been written by Louis Pastézeur, a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Business Strategy. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading!
James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DBS.
