TelePresenceVR: A Tool for Immersive and Interactive Telemedicine

• Isácio Rafael P. Galeano UFG
• Thiago Emanuell V. Moura UFG
• Joviro Rocha Neto UFG
• Eduardo Nery Rossi Camilo Hospital Fundação Banco de Olhos de Goiás
• Fábio M. Costa UFG
• Eliomar Araújo de Lima UFG

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/webmedia_estendido.2025.16435

Abstract

The scarcity of specialized medical assistance in remote areas poses significant challenges to the universalization of health services. Telemedicine has long been proposed as a solution to counter these challenges. Nevertheless, the user experience, especially for patients, is undermined by the lack of natural interaction and engagement when using flat screen devices. In this paper, we present a tool to augment the telemedicine experience with a focus on the patient side. The tool supports immersive visualization of the doctor’s practice via a VR headset worn by the patient during consultation, giving him/her some feeling of presence in the doctor’s practice. It also supports the interactive remote display of audio-visual content to the patient, allowing the doctor do control what the patient sees during the explanation of a diangosis or treatment. A prototype of the tool is currently available and its full implementation is the subject of ongoing work, along with its validation and evaluation in real-life scenarios.

Keywords: Telemedicine, Telepresence, WebRTC, Virtual Reality, QoE

References

Brasil. 1990. Lei nº 8.080, de 19 de setembro de 1990. [link] Diário Oficial da União, 20/09/1990. Acesso em 19/08/2025.

Thiago de Andrade Guedes and Francielle Santos da Silva. 2023. Public Health Management in Brazil in the Light of the Theory of Bureaucracy: Shortage of Specialist Physicians and Regional Inequality of Access. Boletim de Conjuntura (BOCA) 13, 37 (Jan. 2023). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7584790

Abid Haleem, Mohd Javaid, Ravi Pratap Singh, and Rajiv Suman. 2021. Telemedicine for healthcare: Capabilities, features, barriers, and applications. Sensors International 2 (2021), 100117. DOI: 10.1016/j.sintl.2021.100117

Nyiramana Mukamurera P. 2025. Telepresence in Healthcare: Engineering Remote Consultations. IDOSR Journal of Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Allied Fields 10, 1 (2025).

Richard Skarbez, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., and Mary C. Whitton. 2017. A Survey of Presence and Related Concepts. ACM Comput. Surv. 50, 6, Article 96 (Nov. 2017), 39 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3134301

Branislav Sredojev, Dragan Samardzija, and Dragan Posarac. 2015. WebRTC technology overview and signaling solution design and implementation. In 2015 38th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO). 1006–1009. DOI: 10.1109/MIPRO.2015.7160422

Qing Zhang, Mohan Karunanithi, and Chansuk Kang. 2019. Immersive Augmented Reality (IAmReal) – Remote Clinical Consultation. In 2019 IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical & Health Informatics (BHI). 1–4. DOI: 10.1109/BHI.2019.8834641