  There is a strong demand for virtual reality (VR) to bring quality healthcare
to underserved populations. This paper addresses this need with the design and
prototype of SURVIVRS: Surround Video-Based Virtual Reality for Surgery
Guidance. SURVIVRS allows a remote specialist to guide a local surgery team
through a virtual reality (VR) telepresence interface. SURVIVRS is motivated by
a need for medical expertise in remote and hard-to-reach areas, such as
low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs). The remote surgeon interface allows the
live observation of a procedure and combines 3D user interface annotation and
communication tools on streams of the surgical site and the patient vitals
monitor. SURVIVRS also supports debriefing and educational experiences by
offering the ability for users to watch recorded surgeries from the point of
view of the remote expert. The main contributions of this work are: the
feasibility demonstration of the SURVIVRS system through a rigorous 3D user
interface design process; the implementation of a prototype application that
realizes the proposed design; and a usability evaluation of SURVIVRS showing
that the tool was highly favored by users from the general population. The
paper discusses the next steps in this line of research aimed at more equitable
and diverse access to healthcare.

Human-Computer Interaction