VA Improving Delivery of Health Care Using Extended Reality Tech

The Department of Veterans Affairs is working to improve health care delivery by fielding extended reality technologies that can transport patients to places like art museums or beaches without leaving their hospital beds.

In February, the Veterans Health Administration launched the XR Network, which allows veterans across the U.S. to use virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies to participate in sessions aimed at treating challenges such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.

50 VHA sites are using XR and more than 200 VA employees are involved in the XR Network, Nextgov reported.

VA is set to conduct the network’s first multi-site quality improvement pilot.

The pilot is aimed at determining the utility of virtual reality in “falls risk assessments, neurological risk assessment, palliative care, procedural use, acute and/or chronic pain management, and anxiety,” according to Dr. Anne Bailey, the chair of the XR Network and the emerging tech clinical specialist of the VHA.

Staffers involved in the XR Network are now planning an all-hands virtual meeting to be held at the end of June and the first multi-location pilot, which is expected to explore various inpatient and outpatient applications.

Bailey said that the pilot would be conducted across 11 different medical centers backed by the VA, including facilities in Virginia, Ohio, California and Colorado.