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Original Research
Augmented Reality Demonstration Survey Results From a Veteran Affairs Medical Center
Thomas F. Osborne, MDa,b; David M. Arreolaa; Zachary P. Veigulis, MSAa; Christopher Morley, MDc; Osamah Choudhry, MDc; Wenbo Lanc; Kristopher R. Teagued; Ryan Vega, MDd,e; Satish M. Mahajan, PhDa Correspondence: Thomas Osborne (thomas.osborne@va.gov)
aUS Department of Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto Health Care System, California
bStanford University School of Medicine, California
cMedivis, Inc., New York, New York
dUS Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC
eGeorge Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC
Author disclosures
No financial support was provided for the conduct or preparation of this manuscript. Medivis provided the mixed reality software and hardware for the demonstration. Three of the coauthors are Medivis employees but did not collect or analyze the data. No other authors have a financial interest in Medivis.
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Federal Practitioner, Frontline Medical Communications Inc., the US Government, or any of its agencies.
Ethics and consent
This study was determined to be nonresearch by the Stanford University (Stanford, CA, USA), Institutional Review Board which is the Institutional Review Board for the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto Health Care System. No identifiable information was collected.
We reviewed published studies that used questionnaires to evaluate institutions’ level of innovation and new technology user acceptance to develop the questionnaire.49-56 Questions and methods were modified, with a focus on understanding the impact on hospital employees. The questionnaire consisted of 2 predemonstration and 3 postdemonstration sections. The first section included background questions. The second (predemonstration) and third (postdemonstration) sections provided matched questions on feelings about the VA. The fourth section included 2 unmatched questions about how the participant felt this technology would impact veterans and whether the VA should implement similar technologies. We used a 5-point Likert scale for sections 2, 3 and 4 (1 = not at all to 5 = extremely). Two unmatched free-text questions asked how the technology could be used in the participant’s hospital service, and another open-ended question asked for any additional comments. To reduce potential reporting bias, 2 VA employees that did not work at VAPAHCS assisted with the survey distribution and collection. VAPAHCS staff were informed by all employee email and facility intranet of the opportunity to participate; the voluntary demonstration and survey took place on February 10 and 11, 2020.
Data Analysis
All matching pre/post questions were analyzed together to determine statistically significant differences using the Wilcoxon signed rank matched pairs test and pooled t test. Survey respondents were also grouped by employment type to evaluate the impact on subgroups. Results were also grouped by VA tenure into 4 categorical 10-year increments (0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40). Additionally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on employment types and VA tenure to understand whether there was a statistically significant difference in responses by these subgroups. Respondents’ optional free-text answers were manually reviewed by 2 authors (ZPV and DMA), classified, coded by the common themes, and analyzed for comparison.
Results
A total of 166 participants completed the predemonstration survey, which was a requirement for participating in the AR demonstration. Of those, 159 staff members (95.8%) also completed at least part of the postdemonstration paired structured questions, and their results were included in the analysis.
On average, the participants had worked in health care for nearly 15 years, and at the VA for nearly 10 years; 86 respondents (54.1%) were women (Table 1).
Paired Questions
For questions about how innovative the VA is, 108 of 152 participants (71.1%) provided higher scores after the demonstration, 42 (27.6%) had no change, and 2 (1.3%) provided decreased scores. The mean innovative score increased from 3.4 predemonstration to 4.5 postdemonstration on a Likert scale, which is a 1.1 point increase from predemonstration to postdemonstration (95% CI, 0.9- 1.2) or a 22% increase (95% CI, 18%-24%) (P < .001). Respondents level of excitement about VA also increased with 82 of 157participants (52.2%) providing higher scores after the demonstration, 71 (45.2%) had no change, and 4 scores (2.5%) decreased. The predemonstration mean excitement score of 3.7 increased to 4.3 postdemonstration, which is a 0.6 point increase from before to after the demonstration (95% CI, 0.5-0.7) or a 12% increase (95% CI, 10%-14%) (P < .001). In the survey, 36 of 149 participants (24.2%) had higher scores for their expectation to continue working at VA postdemonstration, 109 (73.2%) had no change, and 4 scores (2.7%) decreased. The mean employee retention score increased from 4.2 predemonstration to 4.5 postdemonstration, which is a 0.3 point increase between pre/post (95% CI, 0.2-0.4) or a 6% increase (95% CI, 4%-8%) (P < .001)
The pre/post questions were analyzed using 1-way ANOVA by hospital department and VA tenure. The responses by department were not statistically significant. Of the 159 employees assessed, 101 respondents (63.5%) had 0 to 10 years VA tenure, 44 (27.7%) had 11 to 20 years, 10 (6.3%) had 21 to 30 years, and 4 (2.5%) had > 31 to 40 years. Length of VA tenure did not impact respondent excitement. Respondents opinions on innovation in the 0 to 10 year and the 11 to 20 year groups rose from 3.2 and 3.7 predemonstration to 4.3 and 4.6 postdemonstration, respectively (P < .001 for both statistical comparisons) (Table 2). Interestingly, the 0 to 10 group saw a 9% rise from a 4.0 score predemonstration to a 4.4 score postdemonstration (P < .001), indicating that the demonstration had a positive impact on their plans to continue employment at VA (Table 3).
