U of Maryland Medical School to Establish Virtual Reality Care Center

Using $4.75 million in financial support from the National Science Foundation, the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) is working to create the Center for Medical Innovations in Extended Reality (MIXR)  to advance the use of virtual reality in patient care. 

UMSOM, the first public medical school in the US, currently includes over 3,000 physicians and 46 academic departments as it continues efforts to advance biomedical research and care.

As virtual care demand continues to grow, UMSOM is creating MIXR to develop, test, and certify extended reality technologies for use in healthcare. The medical school is partnering with University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) computer scientists and engineers and University of Michigan physician-scientists to create the center.

“Immersive technologies have the potential to fundamentally change, improve, and reduce the cost of medical training and maintaining clinical skills across all aspects of healthcare,” said Sarah Murthi, MD, associate professor of surgery at UMSOM who is co-investigator on the project, in the news release.

Murthi's research centers on extended reality and how it can improve education and training in medicine,. She helped develop an augmented reality prototype that overlays ultrasound, CT, and video data on the patients.

Along with Amitabh Varshney, PhD, professor, and dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at UMCP, Dr. Murthi launched the Maryland Blended Reality Center in 2017, which serves as a launching pad for MIXR.

“The synergy in MIXR will be contagious,” Varshney said in the press release. “Our industry partners will push forward new ideas and novel technologies. The scientists and physicians will help refine and test those ideas. And we both will work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring these technologies from the lab to the proper healthcare setting where they can have an exponential impact.”

MIXR will also receive support from Google, Microsoft, Meta, Sony, and several others as it develops technologies.

Increasingly, providers are experimenting with virtual reality to improve patient care.

In August 2019, Cedars-Sinai Health System used virtual reality to treat pain in hospitalized patients. Encompassing 120 patients from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the study included those who reported a pain scale rating higher than three out of 10. Patients used a headset for three ten-minute relaxation sessions during a 48-hour period.

Pain scores among those who used the virtual reality headset decreased by 1.72 points. This was more significant than the 0.46 point drop among those in the control group.

Further, in January 2020, the University of California San Francisco's business accelerator announced plans to study digital therapeutic platforms, including virtual and augmented reality tools, and how they can be used to care for underserved groups.