In-home clinical uses of immersive tech will raise data privacy questions, VA official says

"include avatars and [non-player characters] for things like peer support, for things like in-vivo exposure therapy."

"you can do that in a very realistic way inside of a VR headset, where the clinician can actually control the environment, they can monitor [the veteran's] vital signs and how they're reacting to the environment, and do so in a safe and very mobile way."

"you can really get real reactions to things that are in those virtual worlds."

The Department of Veterans Affairs employs augmented and virtual reality across more than 40 active clinical and training use cases, including suicide prevention, PTSD treatment, and other conditions. Deployment accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic and now reaches over 170 medical centers with roughly 3,500 VR headsets. Patient-facing applications include avatars and non-player characters for peer support and in-vivo exposure therapy. Immersive exposure therapy enables clinicians to control environments, monitor veterans' vital signs and reactions, and recreate realistic social scenarios to elicit and manage responses. Immersive tools are designed to supplement clinicians, and offsite clinical use raises ethical and privacy concerns.

Read at Nextgov.com