Author: Alison Amos, Alan H. Baydush, Shawna Buchanan, Nicole Carone, Sarah Cummings, Corey Henderson, Christy Hickerson, Gretchen Kessler, Sydney Lash, Kelli Reardon, Michelle Rokni, Sarah B. Wisnoskie, Ashlyn Zebrowski 👨🔬
Affiliation: UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel HIll, Novant Health 🌍
Purpose: As Medical Physics 3.0 (MP3.0) progresses, many clinics are integrating consultations with physicists to educate cancer patients, reduce stress, and enhance the patient experience. However, due to limited resources, offering every patient a physicist consultation is often not feasible. To address this, our clinic is developing and testing patient education videos incorporating Virtual Reality (VR) for four patient care pathways. This abstract outlines the development steps for successful implementation and provides guidance for others aiming to develop similar initiatives.
Methods: A planning team of key stakeholders was formed, including leads from physics, dosimetry, therapists, nursing, physicians, and leadership. Additionally, a professional medical video/VR team with relevant expertise was consulted. The development process involved determining necessary components such as patient cohorts, video content, equipment, and strategies for optimizing the patient experience.
Results: Three specialized teams were created: research, scriptwriting, and production. The research team obtained IRB approval, developed consent forms, and identified data collection needs (4 months). The scriptwriting team mapped the patient journey and identified key educational moments. A collaborative, multi-dimensional approach led to the selection of four patient pathways: breast, prostate, stereotactic radiosurgery, and general treatments. Scripts were written for each (2 months). The production phase included actor selection, storyboarding (1 month), filming (1 month), and editing (2 months).
Conclusion: This patient education project represents a collaborative effort aimed at improving the patient experience using video and VR technologies. By focusing on four patient pathways, we developed tailored content to address educational needs at critical points in the patient journey. The project highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and careful planning. This model offers a scalable solution for providing essential education, support, anxiety reduction, and treatment experience enhancement, particularly in resource-constrained settings. Future work will assess the effectiveness of these resources in improving patient outcomes and satisfaction.