Description of Session
Can we improve the quality of care by putting healthcare workers into the shoes of their clients? 360-degree video delivered through a virtual reality (VR) headset gives us an opportunity to immerse health care providers into the perspective of their clients. During this session, we will discuss designing immersive virtual reality experiences for health care providers that aim to support them in building empathy and grow their awareness of implicit bias. With immersive 360-video, we can demonstrate common barriers experienced by clients when entering the healthcare system. These barriers might include lack of access, disrespectful, negligent, or abusive treatment from providers, gender bias, or insufficient counseling. By design, immersive video evokes feelings similar to those typically encountered by clients when experiencing barriers. Using this technology, we will demonstrate and discuss how positive perceptual changes provide a foundation for improving the relationships between clients and providers. After a brief presentation and discussion, we will demonstrate a 360-degree immersive experience of a laboring woman’s journey through a Tanzanian hospital. The video experience was designed to be emotional and empowering, leveraging the power of storytelling to successfully build empathy and, ultimately, change the way caregivers approach their work. Following this immersive experience, the participants will then join in workshop activities that the health care providers would typically partake in and begin to understand the uses and applications for this type of technology. This type of immersive video can be used in the future as a powerful way to help people identify respectful care, investigate client and provider interactions, or use it to look more closely at service provision in facilities.
