How virtual reality is changing medical practice: “Doctors want to use this to give better patient outcomes”

“It was meant to be the next big thing in the 1990s,” says Steve Dann, chief executive of Medical Realities, of virtual reality (VR). “But the technology wasn’t up to it, it couldn’t deliver what our imaginations wanted, and it withered on the vine,” he told the Giant Health Event in London in November.

The missing ingredient, says Dann, was access to substantial computing power—power that was once reserved for the big enterprise users but is now available within the average smart phone.

In recent years, processing power has grown while the cost of VR hardware has fallen, and healthcare organisations have begun to experiment with the technology.

Delegates at the conference explored the potential for VR and augmented reality (AR) to change medical practice, not only for doctors currently practising but also for medical students and trainee surgeons across the world.