Virtual reality healthcare: Treatment rooms in the metaverse

WRITTEN BY: MARCUS LAW

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive increase in telehealth services, allowing care providers to connect with patients. The metaverse is the next step

As the metaverse continues to dominate news headlines at the start of 2023 – promising to change workplaces, our social lives, and how we do business – the world of healthcare is already benefitting from advances in technology.

Referred to as the ‘new horizon’ in Accenture’s most recent Digital Health Technology Vision report, the metaverse could have a transformative impact on the healthcare industry. And with that announcement, it’s safe to say that virtual reality (VR) is no longer just for gaming.

As pointed out by the non-profit hospital Cedars-Sinai, scientists have been quietly discovering the health benefits of VR for ailments ranging from burn injuries and strokes to PTSD and schizophrenia.

“Over ten thousand studies reveal that VR has an uncanny ability to calm pain, steady nerves, and boost mental health,” it claims. “VR is helping to deliver babies, enabling soldiers to cope with the mental scars of war, and reminding doctors that patients are not broken machines, but are people whose subjective lives matter.”

VR can even provide a safe practice space for intricate surgery. A study by Seymour et

- The Medical Futurist

al. into the use of VR surgical simulation for training purposes found that, as well as being faster, VR-trained individuals were five times less likely to injure the tissue, and six times less likely to make other impactful mistakes.

The technology is also emerging as a tool to help with mental health conditions like anxiety, immersing the user in a scenario that would habitually cause them to become anxious while practising therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

“For some chronic condition patients, enhancing telemedicine with AR and VR presented a life-changing experience,” says Liza Dzhezhora, a Healthcare IT Analyst at Itransition. “Delivered with the help of an AR/VR headset, telemedicine helps manage diverse conditions, from psychological and neurological disorders to chronic pain, substance abuse and cancer. Such tools may also assist with recovery after a stroke or a brain injury, PTSD therapies and more.”

Telehealth and VR

Among the use cases for VR in healthcare are improvements in overall telehealth services. “The pandemic triggered a massive increase in telehealth services, and those services aren’t going away any time soon,” explains Bob Zemke, Director of Business Development at Extreme Networks. “In future, patients will see the biggest difference in the fact that they are no longer making trips to see their doctor or GP in person, instead scheduling virtual visits.

“The amount of personalised, in-home healthcare services will continue to increase as patients are able to use more applications and medical devices at home, including outpatient monitoring devices.”

“Telehealth technologies have marked a new era for patients residing in remote or rural areas,” comments Dzhezhora.

“Small rural hospitals have long suffered from the shortage of healthcare professionals. In a dire situation like the pandemic, telemedicine can become a viable care assistant for patients and clinicians. Patients can schedule a virtual consultation with reputable experts from across the country. For clinicians, virtual meetings with fellow doctors may serve as a powerful means of improving professional skills and bringing their approaches up to speed with the modern trends in their care specialty.”

As Zemke explains, VR is just one component of how technology can be used to create better experiences for patients: “Network infrastructures will increasingly bring all these different elements together as part of a connected, real-time healthcare system that ensures scalability, efficiency, and accuracy.

“This will enhance the quality of care healthcare providers are able to deliver and create a better patient experience,” Zemke says. “For example, sensor data can provide insights into the location and availability of healthcare devices, while analytics from Wi-Fi access points can help determine things like the busiest times in waiting rooms when an in-person visit is necessary. These insights can all be used to support patient care, cut wait times, and ensure more effective asset utilisation.” states. “If a patient requires an appointment with another doctor for some clarification, the tool may spare them the need to wait for hours or days. Their physician may connect to a colleague via a telemedicine app and ask for a consultation immediately.

“Telemedicine may also streamline care delivery at emergency departments. There are smart hospitals that have introduced telecarts (devices that offer an immediate professional assessment). Moreover, telemedicine may allow providers to increase their on-premises staff, attracting out-ofoffice clinicians to run telecart consultations.”

“Virtual reality is a great tool for training clinicians,” says João Bocas, CEO at Digital Salutem. “In fact, some experts believe that this form of training will become more important than traditional hands-on training methods. They believe that VR offers a completely different way to learn and practise human relationships, affecting how patients interact with the physicians they see, and how they communicate with each other while they are working in the same room.

“Virtual reality also helps with learning how to better communicate with patients and their families by offering them ‘a 360degree view’ of the experience. This allows them to connect with their family members and understand the context of what’s happening in their lives on an intimate level.

“The use of VR in healthcare is still relatively new, but it has already shown promise as a tool for training clinicians. In fact, some experts believe that this form of

JOÃO BOCAS CEO, DIGITAL

training will become more important than traditional hands-on training methods such as lectures and case studies. One study showed that virtual reality therapy helped reduce stress levels during treatment by 50%. Others have shown promising results when using VR during physical therapy.

“As time goes on, however, we will likely see more use cases outside of healthcare –including gaming, education, legal studies, etc – so it remains to be seen what impact VR will have on such industries over time.”