Presentation
Remote Patient Diagnosis in Virtual Reality: Perceptions from Patients and Physicians
SessionHC6: mHealth and Telehealth
DescriptionGlobal healthcare faces challenges including physician shortages and resource limitations. Telehealth has offered solutions through services such as text and video chats. Yet, these methods have their issues: they provide only limited opportunities for diagnoses, and they do not foster strong patient-physician relationships. Virtual reality (VR) offers a promising future alternative, which could facilitate real-time patient-physician interactions that resemble real-life visits, through realistic 3D avatars. However, understanding the needs, attitudes, and concerns of both patients and physicians is crucial for tailoring such VR solutions to healthcare's unique demands. Therefore, we conducted both an online patient survey (𝑛 = 402) and physician interviews (𝑛 =6). We identify common telehealth concerns including privacy and limited scope of diagnoses in VR, and uncover unique elevated concerns, mostly around technology reliability, required expertise, accessibility, and integration with existing workflows. We explore these critical concerns and propose considerations for the development of VR-based telehealth solutions.
Contributors
Professor in Systems Design Engineering and Associate Vice President, Health Initiatives
Event Type
Lecture
TimeWednesday, September 11th8:30am - 8:50am MST
LocationGrand Ballroom
Health Care