Is Virtual Reality Streaming Ready for Remote Medical Education? Measuring Latency of Stereoscopic VR for Telementoring

Abstract

Telementoring in healthcare education has been used successfully to teach technical skills and clinical reasoning when in-person instruction is not feasible; however, previous technology for telementoring had limitations such as narrow field-of-view and high latency. Novel virtual reality (VR) livestreaming technology may address issues in traditional 2-dimensional (2D) systems by expanding the field of view while streaming with low latency. Low latency streaming of video and audio is necessary for smooth communication between a medical specialist and remote trainees. If latency is low between the instructor and the remote trainees, conversations can be held without a noticeable delay, supporting synchronous instruction and collaboration. This research reports the first latency test results of a novel VR system that livestreams stereoscopic video and audio to remote VR headsets. Results showed the one-way audio and video latency was less than half a second, confirming the viability of live VR for medical telementoring.