philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Top 10 Lessons Learned Using Virtual Reality in Hospitalized Patients

Over the past year our team has studied over 150 diverse patients using a range of VR visualizations. We published our initial experiences in a peer-reviewed study and are now initiating the largest controlled trial to date of VR, testing its impact on pain management, narcotic usage, length of stay, and satisfaction with care among hospitalized patients.

We’ve been fortunate to work with AppliedVR, a cutting-edge VR company focused on creating and disseminating the technology for healthcare applications. Most recently, we partnered with Samsung Healthcare to test their Samsung Gear and Galaxy smartphone in our upcoming clinical trial.

1. You can literally see two distinct moments that prove when VR is working its magic

Moment of Cognitive Immersion, typically comes within 20 seconds of use ... when the patient becomes aware they are within a broader, more expansive environment than initially recognized. The patient almost always smiles, laughs, or says something like “that’s amazing!” It’s at that very moment the user recognizes that VR is special and different. It’s pretty magical.

Moment of Physiologic Immersion, typically arrives about 3-5 minutes after initiating VR ... more of a brainstem phenomenon, where the body automatically adjusts in rhythm with the experience. This is most evident when we use relaxing environments... We can actually see the moment the patient takes his or her first, deep, purposeful breath.

2. VR can significantly reduce pain without the need of narcotics or other medications,  VR seems to work on all types of pain with seemingly equal efficacy (with notable exceptions, described later). This doesn’t mean that VR works for everyone, but when it works, it really works
3. Even a negative response to VR can be clinically useful ...about 1 in 5 patients who report little to no therapeutic benefit.  ...The failure was so absolute – so complete – that it caused us to re-think the cause of her pain [and develop a completely different diagnosis.]
4. Many patients are medically ineligible to use VR in the hospital [because of bans of subjects with] presence of motion sickness, stroke, seizure, dementia, nausea, and isolation status for infection control.  If we loosened our criteria...
5. Many patients still do not want to use VR in the hospital, we cannot lose track of the very human element of healthcare. What may sound like a fantastical voyage to the well may seem like an unwelcome intrusion to someone with advanced illness
6. The headsets are getting better, but there is still room for improvement,  most patients requested enhancements in fit, form, and weight, while others indicated it was hard to achieve focused images. Since staring to use newer headsets we’ve heard fewer complaints, although some patients still feel the device is obtrusive.
7. If VR is a therapy, then we need an evidence-based “VR Pharmacy”, It would also help to have a formal way to match patient knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and preferences with specific off-the-shelf visualizations.  We imagine that a new type of provider, called The Virtualist will determine the best combination of experiences, dosages, frequency, intensity, and outcome measures to evaluate treatment response.
8. We need to compare VR against an appropriate “sham” control to really test its benefits, against different types of controls, such as watching the same experience on a TV set, or even projecting the image in the VR goggles but without the immersive, 360-degree panorama (like watching a movie in the goggles with head tracking).
9. VR has potential to be cost-effective,  if VR can reduce LOS, then the return on investment will be substantial
10. Doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff are absolutely intrigued by VR

For more information about our VR program at Cedars-Sinai, please watch this brief video or visit our lab’s website here. We are always happy to discuss our experiences with VR to enable other hospitals to begin exploring whether and how to use VR in their own clinical environments.

See the full story here: http://mygihealth.io/expert-opinions/top-10-lessons-learned-using-virtual-reality-hospitalized-patients/