AR/VR在医疗保健领域的潜力

ALEX AMBROSE| JUNE 2025 AR/VR innovation needs to accelerate in order to meet the critical demands of health care.Policymakers should empower and fund immersive technologies in the health-care industrybecause of the long-term cost saving benefits and positive impact on patient care. KEY TAKEAWAYS Immersive technologies enhance traditional methods of health care and present newtreatment options to explore, ultimately saving money and producing better outcomes forpatient health. From medical student training to physical therapy rehabilitation, VR technologies providepatients and providers with safer and more personalized experiences than they wouldreceive in traditional care settings. AR/VR can address critical health-care industry challenges such as provider burnout, careaccess disparities, and care deserts. American companies dominate the AR/VR market—a market expected to grow over 10times in the next decade—and health-care applications remains a key driver of U.S.innovation. For this innovation to continue, Congress should refine the Food and Drug Administrationand Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services’ scope to better include immersivetechnologies in their approval pipelines. CONTENTS Key Takeaways................................................................................................................... 1Introduction....................................................................................................................... 3Value of AR/VR in Health care ............................................................................................. 4Who Is Using AR/VR In Health Care ..................................................................................... 5Doctors and Practitioners................................................................................................. 5Mental Health Practitioners............................................................................................ 11Education .................................................................................................................... 13Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Researchers and Developers....................................... 16Patients ....................................................................................................................... 18Barriers and Risks to Adoption........................................................................................... 21Barriers........................................................................................................................ 21Risks ........................................................................................................................... 23Policy Recommendations .................................................................................................. 25Support Federal Privacy Legislation to Create Consistent Protection of AR/VR Data.............. 25Promote Public-Private Partnerships to Advance AR/VR Health-Care Innovation................... 25Increased Integration of AR/VR in Health-Care Education and Workforce DevelopmentPrograms...................................................................................................................... 26Improve FDA Approval Process for AR/VR Technologies..................................................... 26Ensure That AR/VR Technologies Are Included in Medicare and Medicaid Coverage............. 27Continue to Develop Standards for AR/VR In Health Care .................................................. 28Continue to Fund Research Into Immersive Technologies’ Impact on Public Health ............. 29Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 29Endnotes......................................................................................................................... 30 INTRODUCTION While augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR)—or extended reality (XR) more broadly—is popularlyknown for gaming applications, health care is quickly becoming the largest use case for thesetechnologies. Doctors, surgeons, and medical students are not the only ones using XR for healthcare, either, as immersive environments can also put personal health technology in the hands ofeveryday consumers. In both practitioners’ and patients’ hands, medical XR (MXR) has thepotential to ease some common burdens in the health-care industry, such as low health-careworker morale and retention, care deserts where a specialist is not locally available, and possiblyeven overreliance on opioids for pain treatment.1 The tremendous benefits of AR/VR for health care have driven demand, while advances intechnology have driven innovation. For example, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) havebecome a catalyst for advances in AR/VR, as integrations with AI tools such as chatbots and datacollection tools play a large role across many aspects of medicine, from diagno