Medical VR in the Operating Room and Beyond

Far beyond gaming, the vast potential of VR is inspiring innovators from a wide range of sectors.

In healthcare, researchers are constantly discovering new applications for VR in everything from pain management to surgical training. Here’s a roundup of startups and hospitals that are leading the way:

Why Medicine Turned to VR

VR works by filling a person’s field of view and hearing with a computer-generated world, so the brain responds as if the experience were at least partly real. That’s what makes it useful in medicine. A trainee can watch an operation as if standing at the table, a patient can be absorbed enough in a game to pay less attention to pain, and a therapist can recreate a difficult situation in a way that can be controlled and stopped at any moment.

The timing also helped. Consumer headsets had become far cheaper and easier to get than older research equipment, which made it practical for startups and hospitals to try VR outside of specialist labs.

Medical Realities: Surgical Training

Access to hands-on operating room training for surgeons has decreased in the past decade, potentially leaving gaps in medical students’ training. Medical Realities, a London-based startup, is filling this gap through simulation, by using a proprietary training regimen called Virtual Surgeon, and using VR headsets that give surgical trainees a 360-degree view of procedures.

Currently bootstrapped, Medical Realities will be expanding its filming access to 10 surgeries a month, giving wider access to the simulations to medical students at universities and hospitals around London.

Cedars-Sinai and Shriners Hospital: Pain Management

When it comes to pain management, VR is an attractive option over pain medication. Meds can cause patients to build a tolerance over time, and may also lead to addiction: VR is free of these consequences.

Hospitals such as Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and the Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston, Texas have been working with startups like AppliedVR and DeepStream VR to experiment with VR as a pain management tool, immersing patients in games and simulations designed to dampen pain processing and calm the nervous system.

VR Pain Relief Gets Regulatory Approval

The pain management experiments led somewhere concrete. On November 16, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted AppliedVR’s De Novo request for EaseVRx, a prescription VR system for adults with chronic lower back pain. The FDA described it as an immersive VR system providing treatment based on cognitive behavioral therapy skills and other evidence-based behavioral methods, intended for use at home.

That decision did more than clear one product. The FDA created a new Class II device category, “virtual reality behavioral therapy device for pain relief,” which gives other companies a defined route to market for similar products. AppliedVR’s product line now includes RelieVRx, a name the company lists as one of its trademarks.

Firsthand Technology, the company behind the second link above, has also kept building VR pain relief products. On its own site, Firsthand says that in a study with pancreatic cancer patients at Providence Cancer Center, patients who used its COOL! and GLOW! VR experiences reported 30% less pain and used 20% less opioids.

Rush University Medical Center’s Road Home Program: PTSD

At Rush University Medical Center’s Road Home Program in Chicago, social workers are using VR as part of a treatment program for veterans to overcome the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Using a $40,000 VR setup, patients are exposed to the sounds, sights, sensations and smells of the events that trigger their trauma in a safe, controlled setting, allowing them to retrain their brains to overcome fear.

The treatment is just one part of a holistic approach the center takes to help, not only servicemen and women but their families, to overcome the lasting effects of emotional and psychological issues.

This approach builds on exposure therapy, a long-established treatment for PTSD in which patients gradually confront memories and reminders of trauma with a therapist’s support. VR lets the therapist control exactly what the patient sees and hears, and how intense it is.

The Road Home Program is still running. It describes itself as a national center of excellence for veterans and their families, offering mental health care to veterans, service members, National Guard members, reservists and families at no cost and regardless of discharge status. Rush is also one of four academic medical centers chosen by the Wounded Warrior Project for its Warrior Care Network.

What It Means for Health Startups

The path from hospital experiment to approved product took years, and that’s the main lesson for founders in this space. Health care buyers want evidence, so pilots with respected hospitals and published results matter as much as the technology. Regulators can be a barrier, but as the EaseVRx decision showed, a clear approval can also open a new market. VR in medicine works best when it’s built around a specific clinical problem, like chronic pain or PTSD, rather than as a general-purpose gadget.