Breaking Boundaries: The Transformative Potential of Virtual Reality in Healthcare for Professionals and Patients

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By Sarah Brunet, Deeptech Expert

What is going on?

According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global VR market is expected to grow from $7,9 billion in 2021 to $44,7 billion by 2026.

Virtual Reality is being used in a variety of applications such as gaming, entertainment, education and training, automotive and even more surprising in Healthcare.

What does it mean?

VR has a large of applications in Healthcare, of which :

• Pain management during medical procedures for patients

• Mental health treatment, to simulate anxiety-provoking situations to help patients with anxiety disorders

• Surgical training, to simulate surgeries and provide a safe and controlled environment for surgical training for surgeons and even all medical staff in operating room

• Medical education: to provide medical students with a more immersive and realistic learning experience.

Why should I care?

• 💸For markets: In healthcare, the VR market was valued at $976 million in 2020 and expected to grow of 42,6% from 2021 to 2028.

Regional Market : North America is currently the largest market of VR followed by Europe and Asia. However, the Asia Pacific region is expected to have the highest growth rate in the coming years, in countries such as China and India.

Major players (hardwares) : some of the major players in the virtual reality market include facebook (which owns Oculus VR), Sony, HTC, Google, Samsung and Microsoft.

Major players (softwares in Healthcare) : Fundamental VR, Osso VR, Surgical Theater, VirtualiSurg, VR Health, Pear Therapeutics, C2Care, SimForHealth

• 🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻For society: VR has a great potential to improve patients outcomes, either used by healthcare professionals, or by patients.
  

  • For patients

    There are plenty of applications for patients. Let’s focus on major medical application for patients : Anesthesia :

    • Patient distraction : As distraction therapy to help patients manage anxiety and pain during anesthesia. Patients can wear a VR headset that immerses them in a relaxing, calming environment, such as a virtual beach or forest. For instance, Amelia Virtual Care developed this technology.

    • Patient education : VR can be used to educate patients about the anesthesia process before the surgery.

    • Patient monitoring : VR can be used to monitor patients during surgery  by using sensors embedded in the VR headset to track vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate.

  • For healthcare professionals
    VR can be used by healthcare professionals for improving surgical outcomes.

    • Surgical Training : VR allows to have realistic and interactive experiences, allow surgeons to hone their skills, improve their performance and lead to better patient outcomes. For instance, Osso VR is a surgical training platform.

      It could include haptic feedback technology, which provides tactile sensations to the user, and allow surgeons to feel different tissues (soft as skin, and muscles, and bones) : it allows surgeons to feel more immersed in the virtual environment. For instance, the start-up Fundamental VR developed this technology.

      These two techniques allow training for young surgeons, instead of using cadaver. It also allows some training for experienced surgeons who could learn new surgical techniques.

    • AI assisted surgery : AI can help guide surgeons during procedures, provide real-time feedback and even perform some aspects of surgery autonomously. For instance : Surgical theater provides VR solutions for surgical planning, patient engagement and medical education thanks to AI.

    • Remote surgery or telesurgery will become more commonplace. This involves surgeons operating on a patient remotely using robotic instruments.

    • VR guidance system : it will become more sophisticated, providing surgeons with a real time view of the surgical site and guiding them through complex procedures. This technology will enhance surgical precision and reduce risk of complications.

It can be used also for medical training for all medical staff. For instance, SimForHealth developed digital similators that virtually recreate professional situations for an immersive, interactive and collaborative approach to the training of healthcare professionals, as physicians, anesthetists, or nurses.

• 🔮What’s next?

As technology continues to advance, we can expect to see more innovative applications of VR in the medical field. Overall, the future of VR looks very promising, with the potential to revolutionize medicine, healthcare professionals training and improve patient outcomes. 

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✨ That’s all for today. Thanks for reading ! Stay tuned for our next article coming up next week with our Deeptech Insights Newsletter.

Much love Deeptechers!👋💖

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