VR is becoming a well-established tool in healthcare and medicine to help treat pain management, anxiety, mental wellness, and more. Thousands of studies have shown the efficacy of VR approaches for health because of the impact of the immersive experience offered by this technology. We covered VR in medicine in several episodes in the past, and I’m adding the link to those in the show notes. In today’s episode, you’ll hear an update on the field with Aaron Gani, CEO of BehaVR, a company providing virtual reality solutions to address pain management, anxiety, mental wellness, and social engagement. I spoke with Aaron at HLTH in Las Vegas, where he shared the latest on reimbursement, shifts in digital therapeutics companies’ business models, which might make VR solutions more widely accessible with direct-to-consumer approaches. I also asked about the impact of VR on decreasing opioid use in pain management and thoughts about VR and psychedelics since both approaches leverage altered states of consciousness.

Enjoy the discussion. You can also read the summary of this chat on our website; the link is in the show notes. And if you haven’t yet, do check out our newsletter at fodh.substack.com. The latest edition focuses on the state of generative AI in healthcare, and the past editions have info on how France is approaching the reimbursement of digital therapeutics. You can find an overview of healthcare and digitalization in Africa, insight into the APAC and LATAM regions, and much more. Do check it out!

Discussion summary: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/vr-healthcare-behavr-aaron-gani

BehaVR: https://www.behavr.com/how-it-works/

https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/

Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

Past episodes on VR:

F106 VRx: What has over 5000 studies taught us about the healing effect of VR? (Dr. Brennan Spiegel) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f106-vrx-what-has-over-5000-studies-taught-us-about-the-healing-effect-of-vr-dr-brennan-spiegel

VR: Promises and Challenges in 2021 (Rafael Grossman, Jennifer Esposito, Aaron Gani): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/vr-rafael-grossmann-behavr-magic-leap