Last year at this time we were looking foward to a post-COVID-19 world, so it's hard to believe we are kicking off 2022 with spreading Omicron variant cases and a resulting pause in elective procedures, among other impacts.

"I think the one trend that is likely obvious is the persistence of the pandemic," Justin Barad, MD, CEO and cofounder of Osso VR, tells MD+DI. "While many in the industry predicted this could go on for more than a year, I think few predicted we’d still be facing unstable elective case volume and continued difficulty with in person interactions to this level."

Consequently, Barad expects to see "a more rapid and mature shift to digital transformation (you could even say a partial transition to the medical metaverse).  Some examples of this include rapid expansion of our own VR training platform and other remote proctoring solutions such Proximie, Avail Medsystems, and ExplORer surgical (which was recently acquired by GHX)."