The Future of AR and VR in Telehealth

Recent advances in technology have the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). These technologies can help doctors transcend location constraints, enhance remote patient care, and even improve in-person care. A study from Deloitte indicates that 80% of healthcare professionals believe AR/VR will significantly impact healthcare within the next five years. The market for AR/VR applications in healthcare is expected to grow to $28.8 billion by 2028. AR integrates a user's real-world environment with virtual imagery and digital information, while VR creates an immersive, fully virtual environment that replicates the real world. In telehealth, AR can allow healthcare providers to add visual and data-based overlays via devices like smartphones for virtual diagnosis and patient education. VR enables a wide range of scenarios from fully immersive 360-degree virtual appointments to allowing doctors to perform virtual surgeries while controlling surgical devices via VR. AR and VR can help healthcare providers overcome various telehealth challenges, including accurate diagnosis, conducting virtual and minimally invasive surgeries, and patient management. Some use cases of AR/VR in healthcare include cross-functional collaboration among specialists, remote patient surgery and care, healthcare professional training, patient education, remote post-surgery patient care, and mental health treatment. As adoption continues, the applications of AR/VR in telehealth will continue to expand, playing a defining role in healthcare delivery. AI-powered AR and VR are expected to play an increasingly important role in telehealth and its remote applications.