Is VR reshaping the future of Healthcare?

Virtual Reality is no longer restricted to the world of video games and has swept into the health care industry. Health care professionals have started incorporating immersive technology for patient care. VR has made it possible for surgeons to perform operations on patients while being thousands of miles away from them. This will be beneficial for places where there is no robust healthcare system and often people have to travel to get good medical facilities. Medical students and nurses can also hone their skills by performing operations virtually. Let us see the ways in which VR is shaping the future of the healthcare industry:

1. Immersive Learning for Nurses and Medical Students

Apart from theoretical knowledge, Nurses and Medical Students need to gain practical knowledge by performing surgery. However, these surgeries are generally performed on the corpse but it still doesn’t prepare them for uncertain situations. Simulations can be the most effective method of preparing nurses for uncertain situations that might occur in the future. In fact, VR headsets can be used to better teach the concepts and theories than learning from drawings and models. This will impart better knowledge and understanding to the students.

2. Instant Access to Information

Usually, before surgery or any kind of treatment, the doctor ends up reading multiple chart papers to analyze the patient’s condition. Using MR can help the doctors detect patients’ history and instantly providing relevant medical information to doctors, saving time during interactions, and allowing doctors to more quickly respond to emergencies. In fact, these surgeons can live stream the surgery so that medical students will get a live demonstration of the process and learn more.

3. Medical Treatment

Technology has been very useful in the treatment of mental issues like Phobia, PTSD, anxiety, etc. For the treatment of PTSD, Medical professionals cautiously expose the patient to the triggering stimuli, which can potentially hasten the recovery process. The same approach can treat phobias. Slowly exposing the object of fear in a virtual environment can minimize phobia. It can be effectively used in conjunction with other therapy, medications, or treatments. Similarly, during treatments, instead of giving anesthesia, VR headsets could be given to the patients. In fact, there are immersive games being created so that pain occurred during the surgery and other treatment could be reduced. Experiments have been done on similar theories to prove its efficiency.

4. Preoperative Planning

We have all heard a zillion times about how the surgery went wrong because the doctors were not prepared or they committed a mistake. VR can be effectively utilized in this case to test run the surgery beforehand and even carry out full rehearsals of the surgery. A detailed virtual human body can be created with the help of ultrasound scans, MRI, and CT. Now, surgeons can then rehearse the surgery using them after complete planning. It will reduce the chances of failure and makes the overall operation successful. Additionally, even medical students can practice in these virtual bodies as a part of their practical learning.