Virtual Reality and Telehealth: Exploring New Frontiers of Care Delivery

Virtual Reality and Telehealth: Exploring New Frontiers of Care Delivery

Virtual reality is one of many emerging technologies with the potential to improve telehealth. Virtual reality utilizes artificial intelligence to generate virtual content by analyzing and modeling data to produce simulations. These simulated objects and scenes create an environment a user can interact with through the use of a virtual reality headset, moving one’s own body and experiencing resulting sensory input through a headset. From the headset, a user can hear and see things that generate a variety of environments in the virtual reality experience. The physical headset coordinates with software loaded onto the device. This software is programmed to bring imaginary scenes to life in virtual reality regardless of geographic distance. While virtual reality is still a developing technology, there are exciting new possibilities for how it might be used in the telehealth space.

Virtual Reality in the Telehealth Landscape 

Patients can use virtual reality as a type of telehealth when the virtual reality experience is prescribed by a healthcare provider for therapeutic intervention. Like other therapeutic tools, virtual reality works well in some settings and not in others.

Any intended use of virtual reality must be investigated for that specific use. For example,  gastroenterologists developed a take-home virtual reality intervention for patients experiencing abdominal pain. After one week of measurement, patients using the virtual reality intervention reported a greater decrease in pain than patients in the control group who were not sent home with the intervention. Using virtual reality in telehealth can aid patients in optimizing their health at home.

Virtual Reality Challenges and Opportunities

The development of virtual reality for telehealth presents an open door of opportunity but also comes with challenges. The cost to invest in virtual reality headsets can be a barrier for clinical interventions. Technologists recommend implementing policies for payors to reimburse for virtual reality and encourage hospitals to fund their own costs for virtual reality. Hopefully, these policies will facilitate opportunities to implement virtual reality on a greater scale, which might reduce healthcare costs in the long-term.

Involving a wider range of professionals may also encourage more investment in virtual reality telehealth projects by drawing on a wider variety of funding sources and areas of expertise. For example, information technology staff and graphic designers contribute versatility to virtual reality medical professionals. Because virtual reality draws on artistic, medical, and technological skillsets, physicians using virtual reality believe that soft skills such as leadership, teamwork, and communication skills are necessary to effectively integrate virtual reality into clinical workflows.

When used creatively, telehealth can extend resources and offer new opportunities. In one case, a teacher channeled students’ enthusiasm to develop virtual reality by pediatric patients for pediatric patients at the Mount Vernon School. Students created a program for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta that allowed patients to explore an island and move their actual bodies to facilitate pain intervention and increase mobility. The virtual reality experience was conducted in the hospital with physical therapists present. In the future, there may be opportunities for similar physical therapy treatments that can be completed remotely, with the patient using virtual reality at home without the physical therapist needing to be present. Virtual reality can empower patients to access new or different treatments and can aid providers in designing care plans with patients.

By thinking critically and imaginatively about potential uses, virtual reality and other new telehealth tools can become effective and innovative options for providing care. As an application of artificial intelligence, virtual reality is a new and high-potential tool for telehealth. Input from payors, policymakers, and hospital administrators will have a large influence on the uptake of this powerful opportunity. With thoughtful use and ingenious development, virtual reality may become a vital tool for telehealth and help patients achieve their best possible health outcomes.

More Information

• How Virtual Reality is Transforming Healthcare - U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• FDA discusses virtual reality in medical devices
• Utilize virtual reality for public health emergency laboratory training with the CDC
• UMTRC A Virtual View season 2 episode 6: Artificial Intelligence 
• UMTRC Webinar: Artificial Intelligence in Virtual Care

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