5 Ways Augmented Reality is Changing the Face of Healthcare Industry

One of the cornerstones of modern society is healthcare provision. Currently, the key challenge the medical professionals are facing is being able to effectively meet the increasing demand. It is a puzzle that the healthcare providers all over the globe are solving by investing their time, energy, and talent.

There are a number of technologies applied to the healthcare sector, but out of all the many technologies, Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the most stimulating. The ability to impeccably blend the real world direct sensory experience with all the potential and power of digital information technology is revolutionary.

We live in an internet age, and thus, we are all aware that the digital resources have become important for looking up resources. AR is changing the way we look at things and now it is recognized as a breakthrough technology in the healthcare sector. When resources and time are of the essence, AR lets medical knowledge, expertise, and skills to be shared greatly in the moment.

Listed below are 5 ways in which AR is transforming the future of healthcare to better encounter the challenges.

Improving Access

It is quite difficult to meet the needs of 7 billion people when there are not enough doctors to go around. Traditionally, the access to healthcare has been limited due to the availability of a practitioner for consulting each patient. AR plays a key role in ensuring the quality of face-to-face consultations. By using AR technology, the latest apps such as Proximie allows to carry out complete surgical procedures over distance. The specialist uses AR tools to collaborate and guide a colleague in real time. The immediacy of this knowledge sharing improves access to surgery.

Boosting Training

The long-time solution for not enough medical professionals to go around is to train more. AR has a wide range of applications from 3D visualizations to bringing anatomical learning to life. AR is already having a profound impact on medical training, and now it is also a learning tool that creates immersive and highly engaging educational experience in medical field. It combines several sensory inputs and aids retention to help in grasping complex concepts.

Adoption of New technology

As per Research Dive analyst review, recent developments and new technologies are continually arriving in the AR in healthcare market, which are promising benefits to healthcare provision. However, there is always a lag between a promising technology to come out of its development phase and achieve widespread adoption. Costs of purchasing new tech, time required to raise awareness, and the need to integrate new systems are some of the reasons for the delay in achieving widespread adoption. Thus, to provide a potentially better service to patients, a lot of time is wasted in these delays. Instead of waiting for those all-to-rare opportunities to demonstrate new products face-to-face, apps like Amazon Sumerian and SimX can help vendors reach potential customers all over the world.

Assisting Practice

AR is an extremely helpful tool for medical professionals to complete everyday tasks more efficiently and accurately, and also aids in diagnosis to assist with procedures. The several apps available in the market allows you to show 3D visualizations of internal organs, and projects anatomical cross sections onto a patient.

AccuVein is an AR tool application, which helps practitioners trace veins for cannulation. In future AR can be seen useful in electronic medical records (EMR) being robotically displayed on a device as a doctor consults or examines a patient.

Delivering Treatment

AR is also used to treat patients in its own right, especially in relation to physical rehabilitation and physiotherapy. With AR used in this field, the digital demonstrations can be mapped directly onto the patient’s therapy, where they need to perform motions. The patients can thus refine their movements by looking themselves in tandem with the demo. This can be done either with a therapist making the demonstration, as in the ‘Ghostman’ system developed by the University of Tasmania, or can be done with an entirely computer-generated image. As per a study conducted by researchers in Tasmania, it was found that when compared to traditional face-to-face demonstration, the development of fine motor skills was much faster when AR tool was used.

About the Author(s)

Princy A. J

Princy holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the prestigious Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. University at Chennai, India. After a successful academic record, she pursued her passion for writing. A thorough professional and enthusiastic writer, she enjoys writing on various categories and advancements in the global industries. She plays an instrumental role in writing about current updates, news, blogs, and trends.