Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Dec 15, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: May 4, 2021 - Jul 4, 2021
Date Accepted: Jun 15, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Aug 3, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Towards Telepresence: A Rapid Review of Extended Reality for Telehealth During COVID-19
ABSTRACT
Background:
COVID-19 caused widespread challenges to healthcare systems. Many turned to telehealth which entailed barriers to social interaction and nonverbal communication. Immersive extended reality (XR) technologies can address conventional telehealth barriers by establishing telepresence.
Objective:
Understand how researchers and providers have advocated for, used, and studied XR telehealth during COVID-19.
Methods:
Rapid review of literature published between the onset of COVID-19 (i.e., January 2020) and date of literature search (i.e., October 20, 2020).
Results:
Initial search found 58 articles, 26 of which were included for final review. XR telehealth was used for at-home therapy, tele-supervision of on-site clinical procedures, and development of mHealth smartphone applications during COVID-19. Discussions of XR telehealth emphasized increased engagement, adherence, and satisfaction with the technology. Limitations of XR telehealth included cost, accessibility, and lack of rigorous designs or longitudinal data.
Conclusions:
Telehealth solutions are increasingly demanded under the socially distanced conditions of COVID-19. XR technologies have the potential to enhance traditional and remote healthcare with greater acceptability, engagement, and presence. However, affordability and digital literacy remain barriers to incorporate this technology into practice. COVID-19 may accelerate the development of XR telehealth as researchers explore novel solutions to close social distances.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.