U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
Skip to main content

Last updated

Validation of The Sanctuary VR Experience

Share Print

This project is a collaboration between Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning (OHIL) VA Immersive, San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) and FireflyVR. Virtual reality (VR) is known to enhance learning, as it allows for the integration of proprioceptive, visual and motor information, enabling strong sensory immersion. “The Sanctuary” is a VR platform created by FireFlyVR that allows the participant to choose an experience among three categories: Release and Accept, Intention and Change or Mind and Body. The Sanctuary guides the participant through various psychoeducational experiences and teaches specific mindfulness and purposeful intention techniques to improve mental health outcomes. In this quality improvement project, participants are asked to complete a quantitative and qualitative survey to assess the experience, utility and feasibility of The Sanctuary in enhancing mental health treatment. The collaborating partners will acquire user feedback from key stakeholders, including mental health treatment providers and patients.

This innovation is emerging and worth watching as it is being assessed in early implementations. See more emerging innovations.

Adoptions:

1 unsuccessful

Tags:

Mental Health
Contact Team

Overview

Problem

Substance use disorder is prevalent amongst Veterans. Medication therapies are limited, and psychological therapies remain only moderately effective. Consequently, return to use remains high in the year following treatment. Similar limitations exist across a broad range of mental health disorders. There is an urgent need for the development of strategies to ... See more

Solution

Virtual reality systems allow for the integration of proprioceptive, visual and motor information. This enables strong sensory immersion to promote higher cognitive processing and learning and yield ecologically valid scenarios with precise control over the experiential conditions. Therefore, VR experiences such as The Sanctuary are enjoyable and user-friend ... See more

Results

Results are paused. Please contact VA Immersive for more information.

Metrics

  • Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ)
  • System Usability Scale (SUS)
  • Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9)
  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD7)
  • Brief Addiction Monitor (BAM7)
  • Abbreviated Profile of Mood States (POMS)
  • Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)
  • Open-ended qualitative questions related to user experience

Diffusion tracker

Does not include Clinical Resource Hubs (CRH)

Statuses

There are no successful adoptions for this innovation.

There are no in-progress adoptions for this innovation.

CA: San Francisco VA Medical Center (San Francisco)
  • Dr. David Pennington left the Veterans Affairs.

Implementation

Core Resources

Resource type Resource description
TOOLS
  • FireyflyVR “The Sanctuary” software
  • PicoNeo3 VR headset.

Contact

Comment

Comments and replies are disabled for retired innovations and non-VA users.

Email

Email with questions about this innovation.

About

Origin story

This collaboration emerged in response to Dr. David Pennington’s interested in use of virtual reality in addiction recovery and FireflyVR’s interest in receiving patient and therapist validation/feedback on their current product, The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was originally designed to prepare patients for effective ketamine therapy. Also, FireflyVR was inte ... This collaboration emerged in response to Dr. David Pennington’s interested in use of virtual reality in addiction recovery and FireflyVR’s interest in receiving patient and therapist validation/feedback on their current product, The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was originally designed to prepare patients for effective ketamine therapy. Also, FireflyVR was interested in developing their VR experience for Veterans seeking treatment for various mental health issues. They reached out to VA Immersive to seek potential collaborations. Psychologist Clinician Investigator, Dr. David L. Pennington has been investigating ways to use VR experiences to improve substance use disorder treatment and is involved in VA Immersive’s VHA Extended Reality Network. VA Immersive became aware of these shared interests and connected FireflyVR with Dr. Pennington to discuss potential collaboration. The quality of The Sanctuary and the integrity of the FireflyVR company was quickly realized after a demonstration of the product and a meeting with Shel Mann and other members of the FireflyVR team. FireflyVR and Dr. Pennington jointly identified a path to adapt and develop The Sanctuary to benefit patients in treatment for various mental health issues, including substance use disorders. Together, they identified key development and user feedback milestones and started work on a joint quality improvement and development project.

Search tags

Mental Health