Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

18 PATIENT EXPERIENCE How virtual reality is helping physicians treat anxious patients: 5 notes By Jessica Kim Cohen A range of businesses — from airlines to spas to dentist offices — are begin- ning to use virtual reality to help em- ployees and customers relax, CNN reported. Five notes on how VR is entering the healthcare industry: 1. VR headsets haven't taken off in the consumer market, but businesses have begun investing in them in various contexts, as re- cent research has suggested VR can reduce pain and anxiety. Although it's not clear why VR can reduce these sensations, it may be related to the technology's ability to distract users from their physical surroundings. 2. One startup bringing VR to the health- care industry is Operability, which uses the technology to allow dental patients to watch nature scenes during appointments. e goal is to help anxious patients, according to Bryan Laskin, DDS, a dentist and founder of Operability. 3. Dr. Laskin said the startup's VR service, OperaVR, has a "profound" sedation effect, according to CNN. At his practice — which he says is one of 100 using the technology — VR is used more than nitrous oxide. "Once we have a headset on the patient, and they're relaxed, it's a better experience for every- body," he said. 4. Ramon Llamas, a mobile, VR and aug- mented-reality analyst at market research firm IDC, told CNN he expects health- and wellness-related VR applications to become more common in the future. Hospitals across the globe have already begun to investigate this potential. Stanford (Calif.) University, for example, is test- ing how VR can ease the anxiety of pediatric patients and their parents who are Spanish speakers with limited English proficiency, and the Saint-Joseph Hospital in Paris is testing an immersive VR program in its emergency room. 5. Despite its potential to enhance patient care, there are some concerns to consid- er, according to Mr. Llamas. Some users report getting sick or dizzy while using VR headsets, and there's also a learning curve, as someone must be tasked with familiarizing new users with how the device works. Another potential issue is ensuring the head- sets and VR soware always work smoothly, which is chiefly a concern in the medical field. "e last thing you want is in the mid- dle of a root canal something going wrong," Mr. Llamas told CNN. n 60% of older patients don't want to discuss life expectancy, survey finds By Mackenzie Bean M ost older patients do not wish to discuss life expectancy with their physicians, according to a survey published in Annals of Family Medicine. Researchers surveyed a nationally representative group of 878 adults age 65 or older via an online poll in 2016. Researchers presented survey respondents with a hy- pothetical situation in which a patient had a limited life expectancy but was not immediately dying. Most respondents (59.4 percent) did not want to discuss life expectancy in relation to the given scenario. Of this group, 59.9 percent of respondents said the physician should not bring up life expectancy in discussions with the patient, and 87.7 percent did not want it discussed with friends or family. Nearly 56 percent of respondents wanted to discuss life expectancy only if they had less than two years to live. "The majority of older adults did not wish to discuss life expectancy when we depicted a hypothetical patient with limited life expectancy," the researchers concluded. "Many also did not want to be offered discussion, raising a dilemma for how clinicians may identify patients' prefer- ences regarding this sensitive topic." n How this Intermountain nurse comforts deceased patients' families By Mackenzie Bean A registered nurse at Salt Lake City-based Inter- mountain Medical Center is responsible for spearheading an initiative to comfort the families of patients who died at the hospital's respiratory intensive care unit, reported KSL TV. To comfort patients' relatives, Lisa Beglarian, RN, prints a patient's EKG strip and places it in a laboratory tube with the following message for the individual's family: "May my heart- beat always be a gentle reminder of the love I have for you." Ms. Beglarian said she discovered the idea on Pinterest about 18 months ago. Since then, most of the nurses in her unit have adopted the practice. "[The EKG strip] tells a story of the patient — it's some- thing of their life and their legacy," Ms. Beglarian told KSL TV. "Some [families] are very tearful and have really ap- preciated it — especially, I think, for our younger patients who unfortunately have passed on." Ms. Beglarian said the gesture also brings her solace as a nurse. "You know, [nurses are] human as well," she told KSL TV. "[A patient's' death] affects us, too, and we really do care about the patients and their family members." n

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