XR initiative for home health care unveiled by the FDA
The FDA has announced the launch of a new initiative dubbed “Home as a Health Care Hub,” which uses augmented and virtual reality to reimagine the home as a part of a healthcare system with the goal of improving health equity.
The FDA collaborated with an architecture firm that designs buildings with equity and health in mind to ascertain what would be needed to transform a residence into a healthcare setting.
In partnership with patient groups, medical professionals, and the medical device industry, the Agency will build the hub while considering the fundamental and structural elements of a home that are required to provide a good home healthcare environment.
According to a statement from Dr Michelle Tarver, CDRH’s deputy director for transformation, and Dr Jeff Shuren, head of the FDA’s Centre for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), the hub is expected to be completed later this year and is designed to be an AR/VR-enabled home prototype.
The lab aims to create connections between the populations most affected by health inequities and to provide medical device manufacturers, legislators, and doctors ideas for developing at-home services that include health equality.
The prototype’s first focus will be on developing structures in rural regions and among lower-class groups where diabetes is the main illness.
The FDA’s Home as a Health Care Hub is the most recent example of extended reality—that is, virtual, augmented, and mixed reality—entering the healthcare sector.
California-based AppliedVR, a market leader in medical extended reality (medical XR), obtained the first FDA De Novo certification for an immersive experience in 2021 for its product RelieVRx, formerly EaseVR.
With RelieVRx, patients can participate in self-directed, eight-week virtual reality sessions at home that use cognitive behavioural therapy to treat pain. The sessions include breathing exercises, mindfulness activities, executive function exercises, and relaxation-response training.
Further medical virtual reality (XR) companies include OssoVR, a virtual training company, VMocion, a technology company that focuses on enabling users to feel the motion they see in XR experiences, Headspace, a digital mental health company that released Headspace XR in March, and oVRcome, a virtual reality and cognitive behavioural therapy company based in New Zealand.
With the unveiling of its augmented reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, earlier this year, even the massive tech company Apple made a move into the healthcare sector. This headset is being used by organisations such as Sharp HealthCare, a San Diego-based healthcare organisation, Cedars-Sinai, a California-based healthcare system, and Visage Imaging, a multimedia and diagnostic imaging firm.
However, experts argue that even though extended reality (XR) is transforming healthcare, especially psychiatric care, concerns have been raised about incorporating XR into mental health treatments too fast.