Our Innovation Analysts recently looked into emerging technologies and up-and-coming startups in the healthcare industry. As there is a large number of startups working on a wide variety of solutions, we decided to share our insights with you. So, let’s take a look at promising virtual reality (VR) startups impacting healthcare.
Heat Map: 5 Top Virtual Reality Startups impacting Healthcare
For our 5 picks of virtual reality startups, we used a data-driven startup scouting approach to identify the most relevant solutions globally. The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights 5 interesting examples out of 240 relevant solutions. Depending on your specific needs, your top picks might look entirely different.
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Immersive Rehab – Patient Rehabilitation
Virtual reality in the context of healthcare addresses difficult patient rehabilitation challenges, helping individuals that are going through a long recovery after their treatment or surgeries. These range from gradual improvement of motor skills for people with disabilities or spine injuries to psychological rehabilitation sessions in virtual reality. UK-based Immersive Rehab creates VR-powered neurological rehab programmes as well as physical therapy, referring to the notion that realistic recreation of various surroundings and scenarios help the brain heal faster than it would otherwise with regular therapy.
C2Care – Stress Relief & Psychological Treatment
VR tools are capable of helping treat complex stress & anxiety disorders as well as assisting patients in conquering their fears and phobias through exposure therapy techniques. In line with this method, virtual reality experiences are created for individuals to face their fears and become immune to negative stimuli. This is not limited to treating phobias, and some startups are venturing into the field of preventing or diminishing the effects of relapse for drug users. French C2Care specializes in designing and implementing various therapy solutions and treatments in virtual reality. This includes exposure therapy for confronting patient phobias, the recreation of experiences in VR to help individuals quit smoking, drugs or decrease/eliminate consumption of alcohol.
Surgical Theater – Customer & Clinical Training
Professional medical training requires advanced machinery and equipment and is traditionally less versatile and flexible, while VR solutions are used to design a wide range of training and simulation solutions which are customizable, less risky in practice, and easier to set up and maintain. US-based Surgical Theater designs a VR-powered surgeon training approach that is similar to those used by the airforce pilots. The approach allows doctors to plan and simulate surgeries beforehand. Their medical visualization platform also serves as patient education and engagement instrument.
Giblib – Medical School Education Tools
Medical students significantly benefit from employing VR tools to simulate the operating room environment and gain a deeper knowledge of how their work will look like in practice, all without risking lives. It serves as a motivator for learners and prepares them for their future responsibilities. Los Angeles-born Giblib (aka Pragma Inc.), which has recently raised $2.5M from large US healthcare providers, has managed to design and develop a prominent library of high-fidelity 360-degree virtual reality education materials for medical students and doctors at the start of their career.
Firsthand Technology – Pain Management
Chronic pain treatment by drugs today has numerous side effects and is not overly effective in the long term. VR, however, offers a way for patients to undergo therapies that distract them from thinking about pain and facilitate more natural pain relief procedures. Israeli VRHealth develops virtual reality tools and solutions for medical and wellness uses. Their products focus on rehabilitation care, pain management and analysis, and more. One of their flagship products, VRReliever tackles patient pain through complex and pleasing interactive imagery in VR.
What About The Other 235 Solutions?
While we believe data is key to creating insights it can be easy to be overwhelmed by it. Our ambition is to create a comprehensive overview and provide actionable innovation intelligence for your Proof of Concept (PoC), partnership, or investment targets. The 5 virtual reality startups showcased above are promising examples out of 240 we analyzed for this article. To identify the most relevant solutions based on your specific criteria and collaboration strategy, get in touch.
