Interactive Virtual Presence: A New Tool for Remote Healthcare

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed use of telemedicine for healthcare. Many healthcare objectives can be successfully delivered through traditional telemedicine platforms, and others must be delivered in person. Lying between those extremes is a subset of healthcare objectives that might benefit from use of interactive virtual presence, a form of augmented reality that can be delivered on standard smartphones to offer immersive presence as well as simultaneous voice and visual stimuli. Using interactive virtual presence, a healthcare provider can communicate both verbally and visually with a remotely-located patient, but also can interact with that patient through merged reality by pointing with their finger in the patient's smartphone screen, illustrating locations or demonstrating movements. Interactive virtual presence has been demonstrated effective to support surgeons working in remote locations as well as to help parents install car seats properly into their vehicles. Extension of the technology to a range of healthcare purposes, including neuropsychological assessment, pain management treatment, or traumatic brain injury rehabilitation, is feasible, achievable, and recommended.