Remote multidisciplinary heart team meetings in immersive virtual reality: a first experience during the COVID-19 pandemic

Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that enables creation of digital objects and virtual animations in a digital immersive environment that can be visualised and interacted with through head mounted displays (HMD) and controllers.1 2 In the fields of cardiovascular medicine and surgery, an increasing number of reports have become available to demonstrate potential benefits of VR for education, surgical planning and simulation.2–7 In addition, VR has made its entrance into the world of communication and is an ongoing topic of interest in scientific research and promising new tools are being developed.8 Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, local authorities have implemented several protective measures such as physical distancing and gathering restrictions. These restrictions have also been partly implemented in hospitals, however, in the fields of cardiology and cardiac surgery, full restrictions could potentially be harmful to patients, and therefore, alternative meeting methods should be implemented locally. Recently, we have published an article in which we present examples of alternative methods for multidisciplinary meetings to minimise the risk of viral infection and to ensure good and ongoing regular patient care.8 By combining VR meeting platforms with various HMD’s, the user is able to immerse in a reality-like and fully 3D digital environment. VR-meeting platforms enable the users to get immersed in a virtual environment and provide them with digital tools (such as laser pointers and various meeting rooms) that enable VR-guided remote digital conferencing and televirtuality. By organising remote multidisciplinary meetings, direct physical interaction can be avoided, and the risk of viral transmission can be minimised. Until now, no studies on the organisation of clinical multidisciplinary heart team meetings in immersive VR are available in the literature. In order to study the feasibility, effectiveness and user experience of a VR-based multidisciplinary heart team meeting, we have set up an observational proof-of-concept study, which was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we describe our first experience on the application of VR meeting platforms in the setting of multidisciplinary coronary revascularisation heart team meetings.