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Table of Contents
Foreward
Absorb Reality
Amalgamated Vision
DICE Group at Jefferson
Floreo
GeneHope Biotech Ltd
healthiAR
Igloo Vision LTD
Order 66 Labs, Inc.
Relax VR
Sentireal Ltd
SkillReal by Compedia
USBCT
VRHealth
Wise Realities
Other 100+ Companies
Foreward 1
Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) technology has undergone a transition in the last 20 years taking it from the realm of “expensive toy” into that of functional technology. These advances stand to offer new opportunities for clinical research, assessment, and intervention across a diverse spectrum of healthcare disciplines. Since the mid-1990s, VR/AR-based testing, training, teaching, and treatment approaches have been developed by clinicians and researchers that would be difficult, if not impossible, to deliver using traditional methods. During this time, a large (but still maturing) scientific literature has evolved regarding the outcomes and effects from the use of what we now refer to as Clinical VR/AR.
Such VR/AR simulation systems have targeted the assessment and treatment of cognitive, psychological, physical, and functional impairments across a wide range of clinical health conditions. Moreover, continuing advances in the underlying enabling technologies for creating and delivering VR/AR applications has recently resulted in its widespread availability as consumer products, sometimes at a very low cost.
This state of affairs has led to the rapid growth of a vibrant eco- system of commercial entities that are now creating opportunities for getting VR/AR content and systems into the hands of patients and healthcare providers. Novel, usable, and useful VR/AR creations are now becoming readily available in the consumer marketplace, something that existed on only a very small scale just 5 years ago.
In addition to the rapid proliferation of new VR/AR start-ups, another positive by-product of this market potential is in the translation of research-based prototypes into consumer products that can now see the light of day and provide the user benefits that their academic developers had intended. Having a market conduit for well-researched, pro-social VR/AR systems to “escape the lab” now provides significant incentives for funders/investors to support technology research and development that will continue to drive advances in VR/AR user experiences needed to promote health and wellness! Thus, this initial collection of VR/AR healthcare profiles is well-timed for increasing awareness and access to the excellent work that has been quietly brewing over the last couple of decades. With more VR/AR healthcare start-ups emerging in the last 2 years, than in the previous 20, information about these healthcare-focused companies will become a valued resource for finding and accessing the tools needed to make a real difference for the patients we serve!
-- Skip Rizzo, Director of the Medical Virtual Reality research group at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies
Foreward 2
Healthcare has long been a laggard on using leading edge technology, but no longer. VR and AR technologies are being used for everything ranging from teaching anatomy to students, to helping Alzheimer's patients, to improving precision in surgery. VRARA has assembled some of the most transformative new companies that are improving medical practices and treatments and an exciting pace and showing measurably improved results.
-- Shel Israel, Author of The Fourth Transformation
