Life saving applications of AR in Healthcare Industry

Augmented Reality (AR) in initial days was designed in 1992 for the U.S Air Force by Louis Rosenberg to improve human productivity at the workplace. The AR tech has since applied itself to various purposes like gaming, training , assistance, marketing and healthcare. There is a surge in the number of companies that wish to now incorporate AR in their critical processes. The total value of the augmented reality in industry was estimated around 2.39 billion in 2016. It is expected to reach almost 285 billion dollars by 2023 at a CAGR of 23 % in the gaming industry which is still the most used form of AR.

In the US military, AR is used to equip officials with “computer vision technology” which help them in training to maintain various equipment and repair them with drastic reduction in human errors.

Leading companies have started using AR for the remote technical assistance experience which helps workers interact more effectively, and solve technical issues quicker. In the healthcare industry where time is of the essence and there aren’t enough healthcare professionals, this technology can be a life saver. Junior medical associates are instructed and guided through medical procedures by experienced doctors regardless of distance.

The healthcare industry has embraced the positive effect that Augmented Reality will have on them. Rafael Grossmann who was the first surgeon to operate with the help of google glass believes that AR and VR will be commonly used in the industry within the next 3–5 years.

At a session covering AR’s use in healthcare at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, California, on June 8, the moderator, and author of Augmented Reality Law, Brian Wassom said, “[Healthcare is] will prove to be one of the most critical applications of AR technologies”

Today over 5 billion people do not have safe access to affordable surgery, which due to lack of specialist can’t be performed. This increases the scope of AR in the healthcare industry as it helps with efficient and accurate medical procedures using technology.

AR is also used in healthcare education, medical students or interested individuals understand anatomy visually using simple smartphone hardware. There are handheld scanner which uses AR to depict veins on the screen; 40% IVS miss the correct vein due to human error, with the help of the AR finding the correct vein becomes 3.5 times more likely.

@ InfiVR we apply AR to aid human technicians and minimize error for various healthcare and life-sciences applications. In a recent project undertaken by InfiVR we used InfiAVR platform for surgery equipment manufacturing giants, to come up with AR implementations which help their associates assemble and replenish surgical boxes without errors.

References: Augmented Reality Industry Statistics, Trends and Analysis — Brandon Gaille, Beyond Gaming: 19 industries AR/VR Is Poised To Transform, Augmented Reality — The Past, The Present and The Future