One Possible Model For A VR-Based Primary Care Practice

With Facebook purportedly moving towards being part of the metaverse, a new proposed 3D iteration of the Internet, I’ve been thinking a lot about how such an environment would impact healthcare delivery.

Given that over the past two years most of my medical visits have been via telemedicine anyway, it’s been natural to begin to think about how it would be if I was completely immersed in virtual environments. My conclusion is that the right VR environment could quite possibly deliver care more smoothly than either offline or traditional telemedicine services could.

Below, I’m going to describe what I would consider to be an ideal setup for virtual reality-based primary care practice. I’ve deliberately decided not to dig into existing medical VR environments, but rather just describe what might work best for me as a patient.

First, I’d start by checking in with a virtual receptionist, probably an avatar with advanced AI-driven features. Its capabilities would include the ability to guess what questions or concerns you have and display related prompts.

Given the human reality of visiting a doctor, I think it would be helpful if my check-in process included a greeting from a smiling human face, even it was just a recorded message, but that could be brief. Once properly greeted, I would hit a button that gets the “attention” of the virtual receptionist.

The virtual receptionist would not only collect my copay but would also probably share key results from tests or imaging studies which I might want to discuss with the provider.  These records would be saved in a virtual folder I could retrieve when I see the clinician. The check-in would also pop up a document where I could fill in any questions I wanted to address during the visit.

In the process of checking in, I might have billing questions. If so, I would be given a chance to be connected with the billing bot, which, if it could not answer my questions would create a record of our conversation and send it to the appropriate live person.  When I exited the billing bot routine, I would be shunted into the waiting room, happy in the knowledge that I’d handled the non-medical part of my visit and prepared to focus on the consult.

Given that its offline cousin works just fine, the waiting room would look and feel as much like a brick and mortar waiting room as possible. This would include links to reading material, including digital magazines and books paid for by the practice, a video game pediatric patients could play (and maybe some child-like adults) and educational videos.

If I saw something I wanted further information on, I could click on a button that would let the clinician know about my interest.

I could also see including a feature that you could toggle on which puts you on a list of those who have a given concern, such as diabetes or heart disease.

When I eventually saw the clinician, I envision the visit shifting into videoconferencing, framed by questions patients might ask rather than just offering a standard video discussion. These options could include buttons allowing patients to interject with standardized questions such as “Tell me more about…” or “What should I do about…”

This “room” would also display prompts to the tests results, imaging reports or educational material I had in my personal virtual folder. My clinician will be able to adjust the questions or refer them directly and physically to the right colleague if she was not the person to address them.

When I was done with my clinical appointment I’d leave with a report which included not only standard content such as physician notes and med lists, but also summaries of other transactions that engaged in during the visit. It would also include a link that automatically started the process of getting whatever referrals I needed to arrange.

What makes this model powerful, as I see it, is that it organizes many of the processes primary care practices need to complete, as well as making information sharing simpler and more elegant. It would also automate some key activities patients need to complete, most notably getting referrals, and close the loop on others, such as following up on tests.

This overview is just a rough set of impressions drawn from my personal experience. (For an alternative approach, consider XRHealth’s virtual reality telehealth clinic.) I think that if we think hard about how a VR-based practice should work, we can take things much further.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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