XR, What is it Good For? Absolutely Some Things
There’s a classic trope in the world of emerging technologies. People get excited, and hype leads them to apply technology in nonsensical ways. The extended reality (including augmented, virtual, and mixed reality) space is not exempt from this, especially in healthcare.
For example, hype led to the concept of “VR for the healthcare waiting room.” As both a researcher in healthcare and a healthcare consumer, I am confident no one wants to wait in a doctor’s office waiting room especially not with a headset that touched the face of other sick people.
Often the root cause of such nonsense is a failure to assess user needs and understand human behavior. But I’m often asked, “then what makes a good application of immersive technology?”
I’ll admit, there’s not a great answer yet. But there are two pieces of context that may bring us to some semblance of an answer.
Human perception of reality is dependent upon what we experience – what we touch, see, hear, taste, and smell. This perception goes on to inform our cognitive and affective states, intentions, and our behavior.
Researchers at MIT suggest the brain can process an image in 13 milliseconds. That means the fastest way for humans to acquire new knowledge and to communicate with one another is through imagery.
This context provides a good lens to review some of the more successful applications of XR to healthcare.
Radiologists are using 3D immersive displays to read medical imaging. In one study, those who used this technology reduced their interpretation time by 40%.
In mental health, researchers are seeing really promising results especially for veterans, who in many clinical trials have experienced significant reduction of PTSD symptoms.
A UCLA study found that surgeons trained with VR goggles performed 20 % faster and completed 38 % more steps correctly.
Cedars-Sinai conducted a study to investigate the effect of VR-based treatments for relieving pain. Participants reported pain levels improved by 24%.
In true researcher fashion, when I look at those five examples, I see two tiny themes emerge.
Theme 1: Users benefit from data (that is inherently spatial) being visualized spatially to speed up interpretation, improve comprehension, or build empathy.
Theme 2: Users benefit from a simulated environment to reduce risk or make an experience more accessible.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, and I’m not sure we’ll ever develop one. However, these two themes do help shape the mindset of how we think about XR.
These thoughts are my own and do not represent the viewpoints of any company or organization with which I’m affiliated.