Virtual reality is ushering in a revolution in the healthcare industry, changing what we once thought was possible. Patients, surgeons and many other healthcare professionals are seeing tremendous gains in the form of more precise surgeries, immersive treatments for pain, mental illness and more with the help of Virtual reality.
Applications in healthcare
Here are some examples below of the incredible capabilities of VR in healthcare, ranging from helping patients deal with chronic pain, training surgeons from brain injuries, helping relieve employee stress, tackling mental health in the most immersive way possible.
Relieving stress during COVID at UMC
During COVID there was a lot of pressure on the healthcare workers. To quickly relax from long and
stressful days, VR was used with which the employee entered a relaxing virtual world. 15 minutes daily
made it feel like they were on a vacation.
Erasmus Medical Center uses VR for reanimation training
Erasmus MC uses Virtual reality to help doctors to train reanimation after an open heart surgery.
The VR simulation indicates the desired rhythm and how long the reanimation should take. In the future they want to expand the simulation to also simulate the heart-lung machine for better training.
New York University allows students to practice operations remotely
Practicing operations is generally difficult. Virtual reality offers the solution to practice as often
as you want without negative consequences. The University of New York allows its students to practice
from
school and home.
The Best Solutions of Virtual Reality in Healthcare
So now that you know that it works, time to show all of the areas where you could benefit from it in your organization:
Solution
Virtual reality therapy
Quality of life is something people all deserve to have and sometimes are not afforded due to difficulties with mental illness and physical ailments. What makes supporting patients with these issues is a unique nature, everyone feels pain in a different way and experiences things differently. This is one of the issues that face standard practices and solutions. As well as how can you have employees that can deal with all these different issues.
Taking for example post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the idea is the same for mental illness, however the causes are completely different, the background is unique and the feeling it causes is only applicable to the patient themselves.
This makes providing standard therapy with huge complications, like trying to fit a Square in a circle. So how can we create a better solution that deals with everyone’s uniqueexperience? In the quest to find better methods scientists and researchers tested out virtual reality.
The results were revealing, using VR patients could be put in the exact situation that caused the trauma, reliving it and learning to deal with it, accept it and live with it. Think of being able to find solutions like this for the over 200 official mental illnesses?
Features
Provide better solutions for many mental illnesses
Customize treatment to each individual
Faster therapy success
Create virtual environments at the touch of a button
"15 minutes of unwinding in virtual nature using VR glasses from VRelax is exactly what works for me then. You move yourself into a relaxing world and unwind. This way you can clear your head for a while and recharge mentally."
Solution
Stress relief or relaxation for patients and employees
Each year the EU close to $617 billion worth of costs are attributed to work-related illness and stress causing absenteeism and a loss of productivity.
Even with this companies continue to focus on being more efficient and effective, but neglect that the easiest way to improve effectiveness is by making your patients and employees happier and less stressed.
So how do you improve your employee’s happiness is the question many organizations ask themselves and one way that is proven to work is through virtual reality.
Usually employees deal with stress by taking time off or stopping work altogether, what if employees could just put a headset on their head and escape from it all? Wouldn’t it be nice to be on the beach in the Mediterranean, listening to the waves crash and the wind blow? Or better yet going for a swim with dolphins, the thing you have been dreaming about for years.
With VR patients and employees can get away from the stress of the real world, they can relax, can reset and come back feeling refreshed all with the click of a button.
"15 minutes of unwinding in virtual nature using VR glasses from VRelax is exactly what works for me then. You move yourself into a relaxing world and unwind. This way you can clear your head for a while and recharge mentally."
- Daniëlle Arends, Emergency room nurse
Solution
Training for surgeons made more intuitive
Training surgeons is one of the most challenging activities, because how can one actually get realistic training by using a textbook, a recording, or by trying it on a test dummy without any real-time consequences? How would you like it if the person operating on you had only practiced on a training dummy or without a real feeling situation? We know how we would feel.
So how can you make the training more realistic, pressurized and therefore more accurate?
One way that has been seeing great results is using VR. Using virtual reality and a test dummy surgeons can begin to recreate scenarios and procedures including different pathways depending on the action the surgeon does.
VR headsets now come with built-in hand tracking or alternatively haptic gloves which allow resistance to be added when performing actions in the surgeries. Did we also mention that it provides a much more effective form of learning for students and surgeons learning new techniques?
“It makes me feel like I am dealing with real patients. However, I’m not afraid of making mistakes and this has increased my confidence and practical skills.”
- Nursing Student Using OMS
Packages
These packages combine Hardware with pre-installed software.
Medical training in VR package
This package includes The Varjo Aero and a year license for OMS. This combination allows to practice
operations and other medical situations in the most realistic way possible.
This package includes The Varjo Aero and a year license for OMS. This combination allows to practice
operations and other medical situations in the most realistic way possible.
VR Expert is Europe’s leading provider of VR & AR hardware. Active in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany. With offices in Utrecht and Cologne. Our mission is to help companies successfully implement VR&AR hardware solutions.
Are you partners with the products mentioned on this page?
We are official partners of Reducept and we also work closely together with VRelax. We have sold virtual reality headsets to many different medical companies and have built up the experience with the healthcare industry we have now.
Which quality marks do you have?
We are registered with the Thuiswinkel Quality Mark. The Stichting Certificering Thuiswinkel has granted us an official certificate for the quality and reliability of our services
Are you official resellers?
For all products in our portfolio we are official resellers. Almost daily we have direct contact with various manufacturers.
Hardware
Which headset is most suitable for Healthcare solutions?
Which headset is most suitable for you depends on the goal you want to achieve. If you're going to use the headset for 360-degree videos and light interactions we recommend the Pico G2 4K. For more demanding applications like training programs and simulations, we recommend a Pico 4 Enterprise or a Pico Neo 3 Pro Eye.
Do you offer additional services?
Yes, besides just selling VR headsets to our customers we also offer an installation service where we install your content onto the headsets. We also provide support service that allows you to call us with any technical questions you may have about your VR headset.
Industry
Does VR Expert have experience with VR being used in healthcare?
Yes, we have worked with multiple hospitals and healthcare specialists in the last couple of years for different goals and situations. This allows us to give proper advice on which headset would be ideal for your use case.
Where can I learn more about potential news about the development of VR in healthcare?
We will update this page with new use cases and information as technology will allow for more and more possibilities. Besides this page, we also offer a unique blog platform with the latest news about virtual- and augmented reality.
Do you deliver throughout Europe?
Yes, VR Expert ships to every country in Europe and to most countries worldwide. To countries where we are unable to ship we usually have a partner located in that country that can.
Do you want more information about our Healthcare VR solutions?