In episode 31 of «Último a Decidir», FI Group Portugal's podcast (in Portuguese), RVer's CTO Pedro Thomaz spent an hour talking about building technology for healthcare. Half the conversation was about artificial intelligence and how software gets made. The other half was about RVer, and that is the half summarised here.
It started with a request during lockdown
RVer did not start from a business plan. During the pandemic, a social care institution near Leiria challenged us to "take" its residents somewhere during lockdown, without leaving the building.
We filmed places close to home: the beach, apple picking around Alcobaça, the Sanctuary of Fátima, which people asked for from day one. We sat in on the first sessions to check for any discomfort, and saw the opposite: anxious people, breathing fast, calming down within minutes in a beach scene.
"This is not just a leisure tool. It is doing something more in people's brains."
That is when we decided to run studies. The ones that exist, ours and other teams', are at the studies page.
A headset is not a TV
Watching a beach on a TV is not the same as being inside it. With a TV, the person still sees the room around them. In the headset the scene is real, filmed in 360°, and the sound follows the head: if the water is on the left, you hear it on the left; turn around and it is behind you. People switch off from the outside world and let go.
Properly filmed, on a tripod
Pedro comes from photography and video, and that mattered more than it seemed. Cybersickness, the nausea virtual reality can cause, shows up when the scene moves and the body does not.
In the first videos the camera walked around the Sanctuary of Fátima on a stabiliser. It did not work. We switched to filming everything on a tripod and taking care of light, composition and sound. In real, well-filmed footage, cybersickness is far easier to control than in a game.
A Class I medical device
RVer is registered in EUDAMED and with INFARMED (Portugal) as a Class I medical device. When we started, we did not know what that meant; a private hospital group told us that, to work with them, it had to be a medical device.
The first partner we hired for the process did not work out: six months with nothing to show. The second explained which documents were needed and what the deadlines were, and it went well.
"As long as you find the right partner, it is not as hard as it looks."
Being Class I also sets what we cannot do: promise that RVer cures or treats a disease. We explain this in more detail in What being a Class I medical device means.
A video call, not a metaverse
One of the first problems brought to us was isolation. We did not go down the avatar route. RVer has a family call: inside the headset, the person sees a small window with their family, who only need a computer with a browser. The family cannot see the person, because the headset has no camera, but they see what the person is seeing and can talk about the scene together. Up to three people fit in the call, counting the person in the headset: family and a doctor, or two relatives.
More in Family video calls inside the headset.
Why the headsets stay ours
At first there were two options: the institution bought the headset and paid for the licence, or contracted a service with the headset included. One institution that bought ended up with the headset in a drawer: when something went wrong it did not call us, because support was paid separately.
We stopped selling equipment. Today the service includes the headset, training and support, and we fix most problems remotely. No limit on sessions or on people.
"We want them used, heavily used. If it does someone good, let it do them good."
We explain the model in The headsets stay ours.
Two clicks to start
Putting someone into a scene takes two clicks. The app explains its menus the first time it opens, and training is part of the service. It was designed not to depend on us being there: in Denmark, for example, we do not speak Danish.
Why we do not show patients
We tried to photograph sessions to show RVer. The institutions said no, and we understood: nobody wants to be photographed in a hospital bed or a care home, at a hard time in their life. So we do not show patients. We show what RVer does, the studies and the settings where it is already used. More on data in Privacy and GDPR.
Testing before every release
The last part of the conversation was about how we use AI to write software. There is always a person reviewing, and there are bots that only test: one runs 80 to 90 tests a day, another tests like a person would, with clicks and a mouse. In a week set aside for testing, the count passes a thousand.
"With this I feel much more confident when I sell a medical device, where we have to be very careful with the information inside it."
Listen to the episode
The episode is 53 minutes long, in Portuguese, on FI Group Portugal's channel. The RVer part starts at 5 minutes; regulation at 14; international growth at 17.
Thanks to FI Group Portugal for having us.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I listen to the episode?
On FI Group Portugal's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHxXWyXI5S0. It is episode 31 of «Último a Decidir», 53 minutes, in Portuguese.
Is RVer a medical device?
Yes. It is registered in EUDAMED and with INFARMED (Portugal) as a Class I medical device. It is complementary and used under a professional's supervision; it does not replace medical care.
Does someone from RVer need to be on site to get started?
No. The app explains its menus the first time it opens, and training is part of the service.