Holograms are changing how doctors learn
There is only so much one can learn from a two-dimensional book, and that is prompting the use of holograms, one of the technologies inside our Disruptive Technologies investing theme, in educational settings. Given the many systems and their inner workings inside the human body, holograms are a natural fit with medicine, and in our view especially orthopedics, a growth industry associated with our Aging of the Population investing theme.
HoloPatient is one of a suite of educational applications developed by Pearson PLC, the London-based education company, for Microsoft Corp.’s HoloLens headset. When users press a button on the goggles, a three-dimensional, life-size patient avatar appears in a real-life classroom.Though neither mixed reality nor virtual reality—which immerses users in a fully virtual environment—is widespread in health-sciences programs, both are becoming more common. Recently, schools like Texas Tech, Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif., and the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha have invested in full-scale “simulation centers.” These facilities include mock hospital settings and technology like 360-degree video, interactive digital walls, virtual-reality and mixed-reality headsets and holographic-projection screens. (UNMC’s 192,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open in 2019.)
Professors see the technology as a way to immerse students in otherwise inaccessible real-world settings in a relatively cost-effective and easily reproducible way. “Do I want my students to experience a patient fall? Absolutely not,” says Philip Greiner, director of SDSU’s school of nursing, describing a chronic hospital problem. But to prepare them for such a scenario, “I want to be able to reproduce that for every single one of my students.”
