Apple Vision Pro is motivating a giant California health provider

AppleInsider

A hospital system in San Diego is now exploring how the Apple Vision Pro could be an indispensable tool beyond static data, but also for overlaying scans and other health information over a patient being examined.

Apple Vision Pro could be used by doctors

Sharp HealthCare, a California-based organization, is exploring the potential of spatial computing in healthcare. The organization has established the Spatial Computing Center of Excellence to investigate the usefulness of Apple Vision Pro in managing real-time medical information for doctors, nurses, and specialists.

In collaboration with Epic, a leading provider of electronic health record systems, Sharp has deployed 30 Apple Vision Pro headsets to healthcare workers.

"We have invested in enough devices so that, right away, we can have physicians and nurses and informaticists and software developers and others start using it," Dan Exley, Sharp's vice president of clinical systems, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "We want them to work with us to figure out which tasks and workflows it's best for."

A nursing manager could visualize the stats of all patients assigned to the nurses they oversee. Doctors could view a patient's comprehensive medical history, x-rays, and body scans and quickly scan and select items with just a tap of their fingers.

The San Diego Union-Tribune notes one particularly interesting use case: an anesthesiologist could view critical information projected around the patient's head rather than inconveniently located monitors. It would allow doctors to visually monitor patients and their vital stats concurrently.

Apple, for its part, also believes that doctors and surgeons could make use of the new device. Apple executive Mike Rockwell believes that surgeons could even use it during surgery.

Dr. Tommy Korn, affiliated with the Spatial Computing Center of Excellence, tested the Apple Vision Pro and found it to be a helpful tool. However, he mentioned that patients should not expect their doctors to wear the headset during face-to-face meetings anytime soon.

According to Korn, if doctors wear a headset like the Apple Vision Pro while interacting with patients, it may reduce human interaction. He believes doctors could use it before patient meetings to get a deeper look at patients' records, allowing them to focus less on in-room computer screens.



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Anilu_777

This has insane potential to improve healthcare delivery, especially in complex cases. It would be interesting if this could be done remotely eg by having someone with an iPhone 15 Pro take a video of a patient prior to complex surgery eg on the face and send it to a specialist who’s at a distance for their opinion. 

8thman

I am hoping this is just the beginning for it to be used in MANY environments using Simulations and AR! I can't wait for new Developer ideas!

dogolaca

There is some potential here. Because of electronic record keeping, healthcare providers put a lot of attention to their computer screens while meeting with patients. Not sure that the Vision Pro over the eyes would be an improvement. I can see it more likely for the nurses while they check vitals and verify prescriptions than for a doctor conducting an interview or examination.

I could also see some utility in making multiple screens of data and imaging available to the doctor prior to meeting the patient.

The future comes up on you fast.

jimh2

I see the greatest uses being while examining a patient or performing surgery and being able to reference things in real time while still looking at the patient and making observations. During surgery doctors could have access to references for what they’re doing while simultaneously performing the surgery. In the case of unknown circumstances, other doctors could be brought into visualize the situation. 

The idea of being able to have reference materials, such as data sheets and videos while repairing something will be invaluable. No need to fuss with an iPad watching a how to repair video to only have to flip back-and-forth between the two losing your train of thought. 

sflocal

I think the potential is great, but the interaction with the patient I find problematic.  I think it's strange for a doctor to talk to a patient while wearing this headset.  It's just seems cold and distant.  The interface though is amazing.  I know this is a first-generation product and it will get refined in the upcoming years.  If they can miniaturize this to one day be similar to regular glasses, then that would be amazing.

Yes, VR headsets have been around for ages.  It is irrelevant that they others "did it first".  What Apple did, as they always do, is come in later and actually make it useful, and exciting.  This is a seriously cool piece of tech.  I'm excited to see where this goes in say, ten years.

inkling

Wearing a Vision Pro to look at patient data, such as that captured during a CAT scan makes sense. Wearing it while talking with patients would be freakish. 

bluefire1

In 2007, Apple brought the future into the present with the original iPhone. Now they’re doing it again with the Apple Vision Pro. Jobs would be proud.

Xed

MS has HoloLens 2 and plenty of healthcare partners, but I don't they sought out MS or if MS sought them out to try to force-legitimize the platform.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/industry-healthcare

What I haven't seen —and maybe I simply missed it — is anyone looking at Meta Quest in the sam way.

It'll take many years, but this will get integrated into many industries  in ways that I don't think we even guess at this point.

chasm

FWIW, I don’t think anyone quoted in the story is thinking that doctors would wear the current AVP while talking to a patient in the same room. In the near-term it would be more like using a Persona during a teleconference with the patient so that the doctor can keep looking at the patient while actually accessing any necessary documentation — or creating notes as they go.

A future version of some wearable (from Apple or others) might someday be casual enough so that the doctor could be in the room with the patient and wearing dramatically smaller, closer-to-normal glasses that show the doctor the info they need.

danox

Xed said:

MS has HoloLens 2 and plenty of healthcare partners, but I don't they sought out MS or if MS sought them out to try to force-legitimize the platform.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/industry-healthcare

What I haven't seen —and maybe I simply missed it — is anyone looking at Meta Quest in the sam way.

It'll take many years, but this will get integrated into many industries  in ways that I don't think we even guess at this point.

Because many doctors and dentists own Macs, iPhones, Apple Watches and iPads, the Apple Vision is just another Apple tool, but Apples integrated ecosystems across devices are way ahead and leave most of the competition in the dust. The Apple Vision M3/R2 and M4/R3 versions are going to be absolute monsters. Refining the software for Apple will be the easy part.

MS has put HoloLens on life support/mothballed and Google, Meta data vacuuming ways present privacy problems and leaves them out in the cold they are utterly unfit for hospital settings/medical office/research facility settings.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1akhj97/surgicalar_app_on_vision_pro_looks_incredible/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=BV9Xy6L_rlM  Some people in the medical profession see this, Apple or a third party company is going to expand the functionally......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8R2T1cNP-k.   Molina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ7flQhzvnQ.  Fibi third year math major

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yO9lWrke9oE  GoodNotes, and Notability future looks brighter when they release their programs on the Apple Vision (a Medical student taking notes on a iPad Pro).

Using a Apple Vision in this way records/information in hospital setting/medical office/research facility also means Apple is going to need to get into servers too.

am8449

Wow, this seems like quite a big investment they’re making, given that the Vision Pro is not yet a mature platform. 

IRC, the iPad didn’t make its way into the hands of doctors and nurses until a few years after its debut. 

If this kind of interest in adopting the Vision Pro spreads across other fields of work,  this may be Apple’s most successful launch of a new product category to date. Exciting to think about!

Xed

am8449 said:

Wow, this seems like quite a big investment they’re making, given that the Vision Pro is not yet a mature platform. 

IRC, the iPad didn’t make its way into the hands of doctors and nurses until a few years after its debut. 

If this kind of interest in adopting the Vision Pro spreads across other fields of work,  this may be Apple’s most successful launch of a new product category to date. Exciting to think about!

1) It's been out less than a week so it can't be a mature platform. The iPhone too about a decade to get to a point where rapid YoY advancement started to plateau. That's abut when I stopped buying a new iPhone every year and when I think it became mature. 

2) It only took one calendar year before the typical slow moving FAA authorized a charter company to replace the paper charts and manuals with an iPad, but I wouldn't have called that mature at the time. the iPad did mature and plateau much faster than any other Apple product since much of it was a lateral move — I doubt we'll see that again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockpit_iPad

JohnDenver101

Gen Z and below might be OK talking to a doctor wearing a Vision Pro but I can tell you right now most baby boomers and older will probably smack you in the head if you try to talk to them wearing some headset. 

gilly33

How amazing it will be when these slim down in size approaching the dimensions of a pair of eyeglasses. Guaranteed that’s where it’s heading and Apple are the ones to pull it off properly done.