April 9, 2024
Writer: Mahima Rizwan, Content Writer, Supernova Academy
Editor: Bill Meyer, Sr. Director, PR & Communications, Supernova Academy
ARTICLE
Technology has always played a role in making our lives better. Be it communication, transportation, healthcare, education or other fields, technology has been a driving force in making things convenient and more accessible.
Technology advances have evolved basic communication via traditional phone calls into more experiential forms like facetiming with anyone around the world. From transport efficiency and safety, to access to healthcare and food, productivity, and socialization, technology has helped us reach a more convenient and easier-to-access learning experience. It has enabled global communities to form organically on the internet.
Similarly, today, the potential of augmented reality (AR) to interact with real-environment 3D structures has aided in developing unprecedented possibilities for shaping the future of medical and healthcare training. The use of AR-compatible devices, be it laptop, a smartphone or tablet, have been a great source recently for enhancing the learning experience for a better understanding of complex human anatomy
The healthcare industry, being a crucial part of our society, requires continuous advancements for the betterment of patient care, enhanced medical training, and simplified, complex surgical procedures. Augmented reality (AR) has transformed various facets of healthcare and medical learning by providing real-time, three-dimensional (3D) visualizations, personalized healthcare solutions, and interactive simulations, making inroads towards a promising future.
AR, combined with Virtual Reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI), is evolving the healthcare sector. The latest AI-powered AR systems can be used for simulating medical procedures and training in a realistic and controlled virtual environment. This approach allows medical professionals to enhance their skills and expertise, ensuring top-quality patient care. Surgeons can use AR for surgery planning, reducing the chances of any life-threatening risks
AI is emerging as a game-changer for healthcare workers by customizing learning experience for each individual according to their strengths and weaknesses.
Imagine a nurse with artificial intelligence as her guide, with targeted quizzes, modules, and simulations to enhance her diagnostic capabilities. The involvement of a machine can help her boost her expertise even further with visible improvements in her diagnostic skills.
From aiding surgeons in complex operations to assisting patients in better understanding their health conditions, AR is on its way towards a promising future by combining technology and medicine to create extraordinary possibilities.
Additionally, the use of augmented reality can aid researchers in visualizing complex data and models. Eventually, this leads to a better understanding of medical conditions and diseases and, hence, their treatments. Moreover, the involvement of artificial intelligence can help researchers test and refine medical devices and treatments, resulting in more effective outcomes for patients and minimizing the burden on animal testing models.
Let’s take a closer look at the transformative potential of AR in healthcare, exploring its various applications, and how it could shape the future of medical training. AI/AR is not just a technological innovation, but a window through which we can look into a new paradigm of healthcare
AR/AI technology is helping students explore the intricacies of the human body, simulate complex procedures, and enhance or perfect their skills with life-like realism.
With the help of AI and AR, images, sounds, or text can be used to create real-world scenarios. This helps create interactive experiences and enables students to visualize complex concepts in a real-world context.
AR offers learners access to anatomical models and disease pathologies in 3D format, making it more interactive. The use of devices like AR glasses allows students to visualize and interact with anatomical structures, creating a lifelike realism experience
AR and AI Digital Environment: Making Medical Training More Accessible and Interactive for Students in the Medical and Health Sciences
Let’s look at the individual benefits that AR/AI offers to improve the student experience and enhance the overall quality of their medical training.
1. A Secure training experience
Medical procedures are complex, and mistakes can cost lives. Therefore, it is extremely important to come up with a realistic but risk-free practice. AR/AI is the best option for lifelike practice in surgical training, where mistakes can have serious consequences. Students can have smooth practice as many times as needed to perfect their skills without risking human life.
2. Enhanced medical training
The involvement of 3D medical scenarios makes learning a thousand times more interactive for medical students and professionals. Moreover, the involvement of visuals and sounds improves knowledge and retention, as proven by the Cleveland Clinic case study in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University. The study reports that AR platforms enhance the understanding of complex anatomical structures and medical procedures.
3. Access to a wide range of practical scenarios
AI/AR can handle a wide range of medical conditions and scenarios, from routine procedures to complex, rare, or emergency cases. HenceAs a result, healthcare professionals can gain exposure to a variety of situations that they may not regularly encounter in their training.
4. Instant feedback
Making mistakes is the way to learn progressively. AI and AR help the learners understand their mistakes and correct them on the spot, improving the learners’ performance.
5. Budget-friendly training
High-end medical equipment, like cadavers, is expensive. The incorporation of this technology can simulate complex scenarios virtually, thereby significantly cutting costs.
6. Cooperative learning
AI/AR promotes distance learning, fostering teamwork, improved decision-making, and knowledge sharing by collaborative medical professionals from all over the world.
7. Stress management
Training in a simulated environment can help healthcare professionals be psychologically prepared for high-stress situations. This is especially true for surgical fields, intensive care, or emergency care, where quick decision-making is vital.
8. Patient management
AR/AI is not only helpful for doctors, but for patients as well. Complicated conditions are hard for non-scientific people to understand, often making their situation miserable. The utilization of visual, easy-to-understand animation for patient education can be helpful in explaining complex procedures or conditions. This can encourage patients to proactively manage their health.
The future of AR in healthcare:
We have grown up seeing movies where a character layers images onto the physical world, interacting and making instant decisions within seconds. At this point, augmented reality has played a role in bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds, making life easy with rich online information available.
As the technology has advanced, AR has opened up endless possibilities, offering a range of advantages, including access to valuable healthcare strategies, reducing invasive procedures and pre-operative anxiety, and accelerated, more accurate diagnosis.
For instance, to visualize the damage caused by COVID-19 to the lungs, Dr. Keith Mortman of George Washington University Hospital utilized Surgical Theatre’s VR technology. This helped communicate the severity of the disease to a wider audience.
As we delve into the future of AR/AI in medical training, it brings great technological advancements with wide integrated applications. It is expected to shape the future of healthcare education, making learning more engaging, efficient, and adaptive according to individual needs. Navigating into the intersection of medical science and technology, one thing is certain: AI and AR are not just shaping the future of medical education—they are actively creating it.
The utilization of AI/AR expands to the use of online collaboration tools, for example, by doctors wearing AR headsets. By using these, they are able to consult with other doctors, seeking their guidance through a procedure, even when they’re physically miles, even continents, away from each other. Hence, reaching the end meets saving a patient’s life. Moreover, the use of AI and AR in pharmaceutical and genomics companies can help with better visualization, analysis, and discovery for the development of new drugs and therapies.
As AR and AI technologies advance rapidly, their applications in healthcare education are poised to grow exponentially. Current statistics suggest an increasing integration of these technologies into medical curricula. Organizations like Supernova Academy Inc. are playing a crucial role in providing AR, VR and AI-integrated personalized learning experiences and sophisticated simulations. This experiential learning combines technology and medicine to produce better-prepared healthcare professionals.
About Supernova Academy Inc.
Supernova Academy Inc. is revolutionizing the healthcare industry by integrating surgery, imaging, computer science and engineering to develop state-of-the-art AR (augmented reality) technologies in medical education to improve surgical capabilities. With the belief that visual and immersive learning lays the foundation for aspiring physicians and healthcare work force, Supernova Academy offers a full spectrum of courses geared towards human anatomy and physiology. Our team of leading professionals, comprised of physicians, clinicians, developers and engineers, collectively have more than 50 years of experience training professionals in a multitude of industries, including healthcare, project management, manufacturing, and construction. The company is devoted to developing cutting edge, innovative and disruptive methodologies, delivering the best educational content that can be seamlessly integrated into training and educational programs. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.