The increasingly widespread adoption of Augmented and Virtual Reality solutions in healthcare marks the transition from a traditional approach to a more futuristic one. In this sense, we are witnessing substantial changes, positively affecting the improvement of remote medical performance and healthcare.
Nowadays, AR and VR are in high demand, and not just in the gaming industry. In fact, these immersive technologies are catching on in healthcare too, where they are mostly used for:
- Surgical procedures
- Diagnostics
- Training
- Education
- Pain management and rehabilitation
The benefits of Augmented and Virtual Reality in the healthcare industry are driving the growth of a market whose turnover is expected to reach $9.5 billion in 2028.
The use of digitization in the healthcare industry, boosted in the COVID-19 period, will increase in 2022, making it one of the biggest trends of this year.
What is this change about? Let’s find out together.
AR and VR: How the Healthcare Industry is Changing
Digital Health responds to the changing needs of both medical staff and patients. The former are looking for tools for rendering processes more streamlined and efficient so they can devote themselves to the care and assistance of their patients.
The latter, in turn, need more immediate ways to communicate with specialists and decode the complex information the latter provide. In effect, AR and VR are becoming fundamental steps in a shared path to achieve these goals, with significant benefits for the ongoing healthcare revolution.
Think about medical training: with Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, healthcare training becomes more interactive and collaborative. This improves doctors’ skills and precision during surgery. Procedure times are reduced, as well as error margins.
Robotic surgery will also acquire a more central role, with devices performing high precision procedures. Surgeons will maneuver them using AR and VR connected instruments.
Augmented Reality in Healthcare: Future Scenarios
The opportunity to use AR in healthcare to superimpose images will be fundamental for interactive emergency maps. Indeed, mobile apps connected to smart glasses, tablets and smartphones will help to locate a hospital, an emergency room, a nearby pharmacy faster.
With immersive technologies, doctors will be able to tailor their approach to patients. In fact, these solutions allow them to provide their patients with practical and visual information concerning:
- the ways a surgery will be performed
- post-operative steps
- faster rehabilitation
The information that is shared using Augmented Reality will be more understandable than when using traditional communication methods. This will affect both the doctor-patient relationship and the collaboration between experts. In fact, there will be concrete interaction and support in surgical procedures as well as in the diagnosis and treatment of the pathologies encountered.
The Eye4Task Technology for Medicine
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted very clearly the imbalance between demand for physicians and the actual workforce. It’s a process that needs to be streamlined and made more effective in order to train the next generation of healthcare professionals and ensure patient care.
Therefore, the use of AR and VR solutions means improving the training of residents and giving them the opportunity to learn, in a faster but still comprehensive way, about anatomy, facilitating practice to gain confidence in the surgical dexterity and, consequently, improve, skills.
We have seen how much the digital transformation and the development of new technologies in healthcare are important in medical training, in patient care and assistance also when they occur remotely.
In addition to training and educational purposes, the use of AR in healthcare gives practitioners the opportunity to reduce distances, facilitate communication between specialists and provide remote assistance.
In this context, there are concrete advantages in the use of Eye4Task, the technology at the service of medicine. This “ready2use” platform, in fact, makes it possible to collaborate remotely even in the healthcare sector, since during the procedure every doctor supports, evaluates and interacts with colleagues.
During surgical procedure, a remote expert through the Support Room, can offer surgeons collaborative support.
Here are just a few benefits of Eye4Task in healthcare:
- Reduces physicians’ presence in the field
- Increases empowerment of frontline staff
- Accelerates the learning curve
For more information on the HeadApp software, contact us for a free consultation or visit our Solutions page.