Last Wednesday 23th, we attended the Jornades R+D+I TIC Salut Social on Virtual Reality (VR) (take a look at the programme). Guillem Navarra, neuropsychologist researcher, and Lídia Martí, ICU nurse, were invited to present their projects using VR to improve both patient experience and recover:
- ENRIC: Early Neurocognitive Rehabilitation in Intensive Care.
- Using immersive VR as a relaxing method in an ICU environment.
Pere Millet, member of the IT department of Parc Taulí, also presented a new area of work to develop VR projects in the hospital.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (VA) are no more considered an «emerging» technology, but they are established as a mature one.
Parc Taulí is part of the Focus Group on Virtual Reality impulsed by TIC Salut Social in order to support hospital initiatives in this field. They have identified more than 50 VR projects in Catalan hospitals classified into 4 main scopes:
- Mental health
- Rehabilitation
- Education
- Distraction
During the session, health professionals presented their experiences using VR and AR in the clinical practice: from surgery preparation to anxiety reduction in patients.
To cite some VR initiatives, Sant Joan de Déu Hospital presented an improvement of anorexia or ADHD treatments by using VR, or CSI have implemented VR for treating stroke patients both at hospital and at home. Also, Vall Hebrón Hospital is using VR to treat acute pain in patients with burns, and Hospital Clínic implements VR to treat patient pre-surgery anxiety before colorectal surgery.
Almost all these projects were possible thanks to the collaboration of healthcare professionals, Universities and startups. While some of the projects were implemented in the hospital, others were transferred to the market through licensing or spin-off creation.
The session was also a great opportunity to meet several tech startups that are collaborating with Catalan hospitals and universities to improve VR impact on healthcare centers.
Are you familiar with the differences among these technologies?
- Virtual Reality is a fully immersive experience, replacing the whole environment.
- Augmented Reality overlays digital information on real-world elements.
- Mixed Reality brings together real-world and digital elements, and also includes the interaction with these elements.
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