Virtual reality enables doctors to experience what it’s like to be a patient

A new app called OtherReality uses virtual reality to help doctors and other medical professionals to see things from the patient’s point of view.

To use the app, doctors put on a VR headset with an attached audio feed. Clicking on the OtheReality app on their phone enables them to select which scene, from the patient’s perspective, that they want to see. They then insert the phone into a holder at the front of the VR headset so the nearly 360-degree scene is viewable.

Yotvat Palter-Dycian, co-founder and chief operating officer of OtheReality, an Israeli start-up, said that the aim of the app was to boost empathy among health care professionals: “The doctor needs to look at the patient as a person with a problem and not as a problem.”

The technology is being piloted at the obstetrics-gynaecology emergency department at Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest hospital. On average, several pregnant women learn that they have miscarried during a single shift at the department. For the women, receiving the news of a miscarriage can be devastating, while for the doctors, delivering the news is a matter of routine.  “For the physician, this is common and most of the time there is no danger to the patient’s life… The doctor is more focused on clearing the bed, while for the patient it may be traumatic, painful and difficult,” said Palter-Dycian.

Motti Neiger, OtheReality’s founder and a professor of communications at Bar-Ilan University, said: “A lack of empathy is affecting everyone everywhere — globally, not only in Israel. It’s not only in the healthcare field. It also affects education, the business setting, and much more.”

He added: “In the healthcare field, we know that this lack of empathy leads to lower patient satisfaction, a lack of patient compliance with medical instructions, and higher hospital readmission rates. It also leads to more malpractice suits, as well as increased dissatisfaction and burnout among medical staff.”

Scenes are scripted based on input from doctors and patients

OtheReality scenes are presented by specially trained actors and are scripted based on input from doctors about medical terminology and situations, and from patients about how they experience these situations. In one typical scene, a doctor can feel what it’s like to be a pregnant woman lying on a hospital bed with her legs in stirrups, while the doctors standing at the foot of the bed talk to each other rather than the patient.

“Dozens of women wrote me about their experience in the OB-GYN emergency room. They remembered everything about what happened, including many small details, like what the light and temperature were like, the sound of the air conditioner, the bad joke someone told, and exactly where the doctor was when he delivered the bad news,” Neiger said.

OtheReality enables doctors to see details that they would normally miss, but that are significant for the patient.  Professor Eran Weiner, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, has been using OtheReality with residents and nurses. “There are all different noises, including the nurse speaking on the phone on the other side of the curtain,” Winer said. “You see how dramatic it is when the curtain opens in the middle of the [intravaginal ultrasound that shows that there is no fetal heartbeat], and how the resident is not confident and leaves the room to consult with a senior doctor, and then has to repeat the test. You hear small remarks that are kind of sometimes cynical, and how things look from the husband’s point of view, as he sees the misery on his wife’s face.”

He added: “When you’re breaking bad news, you expect the personnel to be at their best. From the patient’s point of view, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, so they shouldn’t have to don’t tolerate disturbances and these kinds of behaviours.”