With COVID-19 rapidly spreading throughout the world, caring for patients and gaining experience as a doctor has become increasingly difficult for healthcare workers and medical students. However, virtual reality is helping them work towards creating a virtual environment closest to what they would experience on a normal day prior to the breakout of the coronavirus. One of the major ways virtual reality is being utilized is electronic intensive care units, or eICUs. eICUs allow healthcare professionals to remotely care for patients as they normally would in an ICU. With cameras, microphones, smart alarms, and more, intensivists, or eICU caregivers, can easily monitor their patients’ health.
eICUs are also useful for medical education during this pandemic. Medical students can use eICUs to do trainee work and gain clinical experience because it allows them to remotely communicate with doctors on site and see the usual procedures inside a hospital room. Furthermore, augmented reality is being used to assist medical workers. For example, the Hololens is a headset that creates 3d holographics in front of users. It can be used to train people on the procedures of treating people with various medical conditions. It is especially useful right now for training on treating the coronavirus. This headset is also used to train medical students. The holograms can help them see and study the human body virtually. Virtual and augmented reality continue to develop and help healthcare workers and students perform well in a remote environment during the pandemic and beyond.
Authored by Alisha Manocha
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