Breaking New Ground in Health Care: Setting the Standard for XR Clinical Research With the RATE-XR Guideline -

License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)

A landmark guideline in extended reality clinical research sets a new standard in reporting, ensuring transparency, safety, and quality.

(Toronto, December 9, 2024) In a pivotal step toward improving research standards in health care technologies, the Journal of Medical Internet Research has published the RATE-XR guideline. This new tool aims to standardize reporting for early-phase clinical studies involving extended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality. Developed through a robust, expert-driven process, RATE-XR addresses critical gaps in transparency, safety, and ethical reporting, ensuring XR applications meet the needs of patients and researchers alike.

Led by a multidisciplinary team of international experts, RATE-XR offers a checklist comprising 17 XR-specific and 14 generic reporting items, along with detailed explanations to guide researchers. This comprehensive framework not only emphasizes transparency and patient-centeredness but also fosters reproducibility, laying the groundwork for responsible integration of XR technologies into health care.

RATE-XR is designed to be inclusive and adaptable to the fast-changing field of XR. Its development included a 2-step expert consultation process, with input from a wide range of stakeholders. RATE-XR offers straightforward recommendations and covers essential topics like clinical utility, safety to human factors, and ethics.

The publication marks a significant milestone in the evolving landscape of XR research. By enhancing the rigor and clarity of clinical evaluations, the RATE-XR guideline empowers researchers, clinicians, and technology developers to assess XR innovations effectively and accelerate their integration into health care systems. The research team hopes this guideline will inspire further advancements in harmonizing XR research practices.

Original article:

Vlake J, Drop D, Van Bommel J, Riva G, Wiederhold B, Cipresso P, Rizzo A, Rothbaum B, Botella C, Hooft L, Bienvenu O, Jung C, Geerts B, Wils E, Gommers D, van Genderen M, RATE-XR Expert Group
Reporting Guidelines for the Early-Phase Clinical Evaluation of Applications Using Extended Reality: RATE-XR Qualitative Study Guideline
DOI: 10.2196/56790

J Med Internet Res 2024;26:e56790

URL: https://www.jmir.org/2024/1/e56790

About JMIR Publications

JMIR Publications, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024, is a leading open access digital health research publisher. As a pioneer in open access publishing, JMIR Publications is committed to driving innovation in scholarly communications, advancing digital health research, and promoting open science principles. Our portfolio features 36 open access, peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the dissemination of high-quality research in the field of digital health, including the Journal of Medical Internet Research, as well as cross-disciplinary journals such as JMIR Research Protocols and the new title JMIR XR & Spatial Computing.

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