Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a world-renowned medical institution which is on the forefront of medical research. Alongside with Mayo Clinic and Betty Ford Center, it is perhaps the most known medical ‘brand’ from the United States.
There are many theoretical approaches to patient therapy and aiding the healing process, but only research work on the field can bring results or debunk theories. This is exactly what the medical experts at Cedars-Sinai decided to do by launching a virtual reality project. The Center embedded several Virtual Reality devices in different aspects of patient therapy / treatment, and monitored the results. Medical trials included Samsung GearVR device, as well as Oculus Developer Kit 2.
Watch this inspirational video – we can only hope the program would expand to hospitals worldwide. There’s a lot of room for Samsung and Facebook/Oculus if they want to improve the lives of patients.
As you can see for yourself, VR headsets are creating a meaningful impact to people in wheelchairs, cancer patients, and in general people whose range of motions is limited for any particular reason. This is the reason why Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality are the path forward.
“Virtual Reality is a way to immerse people in an alternative world.” said Brennan M. Spiegel, MD, MSHS (Director, Health Services Research at Cedars-Sinai). “We use goggles that transport people to an entirely different universe, different planets, different environments. What we are doing here is a part of a larger initiative to find out how to use digital technologies to improve the value of care at Cedars-Sinai and beyond. By value we mean to improve the quality of care, the experiences that our patients have, but also to reduce the cost of care. Something like VR might be able to do that by reducing the resources used, shortening the length of stay patients have to spend in a hospital and improve their overall experience.”
The Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has numerous clinical trials for a range of diseases, and perhaps we will see the day when devices such as GearVR and Oculus Rift, as well as HTC Vive Pre are used for medical purposes, not just for general entertainment.