by
John W. Mitchell, Senior Correspondent | February 05, 2019
From the January/February 2019 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Training and simulation in healthcare can benefit from AR since it can reduce costs by replacing expensive physical models with virtual ones. Training can be made more interactive and fun but perhaps most importantly allow for better performance metrics to be developed and tracked.
For imaging, AR could improve communication between imaging experts and the people performing procedures, as well as the patients. There will also be more collaborative applications where many people can participate, including remote or virtual participants. AR provides more ways for images to be visualized and interacted with in 3D instead of on a 2D monitor.
HCB News: Are there other augmented reality projects underway at the University of Alberta, or elsewhere, that you are also excited about?
IW: One of the other projects in our lab is the Medbike. It is a cardiovascular rehab project to get patients to exercise in their home by using a stationary bike to ride through a virtual world. Patients can have trouble keeping up with their rehabilitation exercises on their own or have difficulty travelling to a rehab centre while they are weakened or during the winter. This AR system makes rehab in their home more enjoyable while also collecting blood pressure and other data under the remote supervision of a healthcare worker.
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