Virtual, augmented, mixed, and extended reality interventions in healthcare: a systematic review of health economic evaluations and cost-effectiveness

Gómez Bergin, Aislinn D.; Craven, Michael P.

Abstract

Introduction

Health economic evaluations are required to best understand the value of interventions to the health economy. As extended reality technologies (an umbrella term including virtual, augmented, and mixed reality) become cheaper and more accessible it is likely that they will be used more within healthcare.

Objective

The aim of this study was to systematically review common practices within health economic evaluations of extended reality interventions in healthcare and to discuss the methods, outcomes, and methodological quality to inform future HEEs.

Methods

MEDLINE, Embase, NHSEED, PubMed, and the ACM Digital Library were searched, and studies retrieved and screened. We extracted descriptions of the population, intervention, comparator, outcomes, context, costs, and economic evaluation data from studies that fit our criteria. We included studies that involved healthcare patients who were provided extended reality interventions versus standard care, other types of care, or another extended reality application within the same setting where the outcome included both health outcomes and health economic evaluations.

Results

The search identified 1,693 records in total, of which 1,271 were excluded after title and abstract screening. A total of 422 articles were retrieved and screened and the majority (n = 233) were excluded as they did not contain a health economic analysis or cost data. Fourteen articles were included in this review, all of which found that extended reality health interventions could provide cost savings. Our findings showed considerable heterogeneity between studies and a lack of clear descriptions of XR interventions, limiting their use within procurement.

Conclusion

Extended reality in healthcare has the potential to offer significant clinical benefits and research has shown it to be promising at delivering cost-savings. We make recommendations based on the findings of our review for future health economic analyses to help ensure that health economic analyses can support decision-makers in procuring these technologies.

Trial registration

PROSPERO 2022 CRD42022342110.

Citation

Gómez Bergin, A. D., & Craven, M. P. (2023). Virtual, augmented, mixed, and extended reality interventions in healthcare: a systematic review of health economic evaluations and cost-effectiveness. BMC Digital Health, 1(53), https://doi.org/10.1186/s44247-023-00054-9

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 8, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Dec 15, 2023
• Publication Date: Dec 15, 2023
• Deposit Date: Dec 15, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 15, 2023
• Journal: BMC Digital Health
• Electronic ISSN: 2731-684X
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 53
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s44247-023-00054-9
• Keywords: Methods, Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR), Costs, Health economic analysis, Mixed reality (MR), Health economic evaluation, Value proposition, Systematic review, Healthcare, Extended reality (XR), Cost analysis, Economic evaluation, Medical de
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/28432260
• Publisher URL: https://bmcdigitalhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s44247-023-00054-9
• Additional Information: Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.