Exploring the barriers and opportunities of Virtual reality in the Dutch socio technical healthcare regime

Abstract

Alzheimer disease (AD) affects many people and cannot be cured. Therefore, increasing the quality of life for AD patients is important. Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that has the potential to contribute to AD patients’ quality of life through cognitive VR training and training of tasks in safe VR environments, but is a technology in early phase of development. For VR to contribute to AD patients’ quality of life, it has to become part of the socio technical healthcare regime. Hence the barriers and opportunities for VR to become part of the socio technical healthcare regime in the Netherlands were to be identified. By identifying these barriers and opportunities during the development of the technology, recommendations to adapt the innovation where necessary can be made. To this end, 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders in the socio technical healthcare regime and entrepreneurs working in the VR niche. This research shows that barriers for VR to become part of the socio technical healthcare regime relate to the: Identified barriers relate to the costs, patient side of the healthcare regime, political, organisational aspects of healthcare providers, and regime structure. Identified opportunities relate to the possibilities of empathy training in VR for nursing personnel and close relatives and the potential of VR to treat patients more efficiently. It is concluded that VR is not yet ready to become part of the socio technical regime for AD patients in the Netherlands. To become part of the socio technical regime, VR entrepreneurs are recommended to join innovation centres to scientifically prove the technology for AD patients, work together with healthcare providers, and establish rules and regulations for VR. Besides the practical contributions, the thesis also has a contribution to Multi Level Perspective (MLP) theory. It demonstrates that by using an ex-ante approach to MLP theory, conclusions can be drawn about a technological niche becoming part of the socio technical regime by identifying by barriers and opportunities through interviews with stakeholders and niche experts.