Digital transformation in healthcare has gone far beyond replacement of paper-based management with advanced software systems. One of the current trends is application of Augmented Reality for real-time delivery of data for medical purposes, including treatment and surgery. This innovation is often said to transform the traditional healthcare business model, and this year might be the turning point.
The potential of Augmented Reality in healthcare is vast, encompassing a number of medical activities:
- Patient information, documents, and diagnoses – AR glasses that show patient information and gesture technology that permits recording by hand movement commands; prevention and diagnostic tools that model a disease condition
- Surgery – AR-enhanced surgery with high precision; planning and conduction of surgical procedures
- Cardiology – views and models that aid understanding and performance of cardiac procedures; projection of models on several headsets simultaneously
- Dentistry – AR-enhanced scanning in real time
- Medical procedures – aiding common hospital procedures such as inserting IV lines
- Medical education – transformation of education, training, and assistance delivery
Although it is a yet developing sphere, with concerns about hardware capabilities and security issues, healthcare businesses are already taking first steps towards AR, doing research and forming business cases—looking for medical problems that can be effectively solved by the available AR technologies today.
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