Powering to restrain healthcare expenses by streamlining delivery and cutting down on wasteful spending, virtual care is increasingly seen as not just a smart addition to the suite of services offered by America’s healthcare providers, but a necessary one, as well. Hospitals and health system cannot afford to ignore the virtual health. If your system is lagging behind, it’s crucial to forge ahead.
This assertion may seem bold but, we support it by pointing out the power of virtual care to address a number of the healthcare industry’s most pressing challenges, including:
- Accessible service to patients
- Affordability of high quality healthcare
- Physical and clinical storage
- Economic and geographic disparities in care
Healthcare by VR providing the infrastructure that makes value-based care and population health initiatives work. With a shrink in workforce and a growth in contingent of elderly patients, it also offers a method to address looming mega-trends. This is one of those rare occasions when business strategy coincides with an opportunity to enhance patient care and improve health outcomes.
VR Playing an increasingly larger role:-
- Medical and surgical training – VR provides hands-on training in an interactive environment without the risk of hurting anyone. This has the potential to increase the speed that a student can become proficient in procedures. This can also increase skills in specific areas by adjusting the scenario. VR is providing paramedics and other first responders with timed scenarios that change and adjust for increased difficulty. Virtual reality is being used in dentistry to teach the students on how to use a drill and apply appropriate pressure. Overall, this is going to provide a better care for patients and result in healthier outcomes.
- 3D imaging – By 3D mapping organs and other areas of the body, we can give medical professionals the opportunity to study an issue and find a solution. Doctors can observe an organ or section of the body from all angles and become better prepared. This helps in planning a complex surgery better, by physically organizing it in a virtual world. There are chances that this can allow for precision when operating or applying a needed therapy.
- Pain management– VR is an incredible therapy for patients who endure chronic pain. Hospitals for children have begun using virtual reality programs as a way to reduce pain through visually interactive stimulation. It is becoming therapeutic for burn victims and cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. This is done by distracting the senses and redirecting visual stimulation patients are reporting less pain and have been able to lower their pain medications during procedures.
- Positioning and distraction- Specialized software can direct you to look a certain way or move in a specific pattern in order to proceed through the simulation. VR is especially helpful with younger patients who are less understanding and have a need to remain motionless. The patients who have the mobility of their head can also use this, some programs respond to head tilts and specific facial movements. This provides an opportunity for distraction when patients are unable to be active for long periods of time.
- Psychological therapy – For those who are triggered by everyday scenarios, Virtual Reality can help them develop the confidence to confront these issues and live a better, more fulfilling life. Your therapist would place you in a virtual environment with a digital avatar of the person you dread confronting, allowing you to role-play the confrontation and work through your own emotions, building your confidence to be assertive in the process.
Upcoming
For now the available VR technologies allow us to build engaging virtual worlds, but the next step for many is the creation of human characters with artificial intelligence to populate these worlds. Allowing AI humans to interact with patients within a virtual environment, it could make a number of these clinical therapies more seamless, with less need for human intervention at every turn.
More immersive training options for young doctors can be seen, such as virtually rendered operating rooms running different simulations of real-life scenarios. By allowing the medical people to enhance their surgical skills and improve their decision making as they react to and manage situations similar to those they will face when treating real patients.
When all these are taken into consideration, it’s easy to see why so many are excited about Virtual Reality for healthcare; it will not only change the way doctors work as well as it will also improve the level of care received by patients the world over.