Immersive technology has long been used to benefit many different sectors, including healthcare. In recent years, many have begun to recognise the true benefit of it to enhance the quality of healthcare procedures, appointments, training and more.

The pandemic has accelerated many areas of society, including innovations in the healthcare industry, as reported by Harvard Business Review. It found that the pandemic has forced health care leaders and clinicians to move faster, work smarter and take a more focused approach to decision making.

Similarly, Forbes agrees that the pandemic has meant the healthcare industry has had to accelerate the adoption of new technologies, and come up with new ways of managing everyday processes. It also notes that a vast majority of healthcare institutions are rapidly turning to immersive technologies to enhance performance and manage learning processes.

At Igloo, we’ve already worked with many clients in the healthcare industry, who have all benefited from our immersive technology in a number of different ways - from simulating healthcare facilities for medical students, delivering continued education to healthcare practitioners, to medical marketing to launch new treatments and techniques.

For example, we previously worked with The University of Adelaide to create a state-of-the-art medical simulation facility to provide a hands-on experience for its medical students. We’ve also worked with Alcami to create a virtual lab for taking visitors at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting & Expo on a virtual tour of its extensive labs and facilities. And we’ve even worked with Colgate to build a roadshow venue capable of engaging senior-level stakeholders in meaningful dialogue.

To ensure we’re keeping up to date with the latest trends in the healthcare industry, we recently attended the Future Surgery Show to both learn about new trends and showcase our own. Delivered in partnership with the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the show was the biggest gathering of surgical and operating theatre teams this year and showcased the latest innovations in the surgical world.

Alongside having our own booth to talk to visitors and show them the power of Igloo immersive technology, one of our immersive cylinders was used to form the ABHI Surgical SImulation Theatre. Throughout the show, the theatre was used for talks, presentations and live demonstrations, drawing in huge crowds.

Some of the talks hosted in the Surgical Simulation Theatre were -

• Thorascopic Vertebral Body Tethering for Scoliosis by Julian Leong, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and David Baxter, Defence Medical Services - which was excellently covered in this blog post from the UK Healthcare Paviliion 
• How to use Video and XR for Surgical Training and Patient Engagement by Alexander Young, CEO of Virti
• Innovation for Cataracts, Glaucoma and Lens Replacement by Vik Sharma, Consultant Ophthalmologist, Cataract and Glaucoma Specialist, Clinical Director, - London Ophthalmology Centre
• Mimics Innovation Suite Presentation from Materialise on 3D reconstruction software by Arsham Khayatpoor, Senior Application Engineer at Materialise Medical
• Data: a new frontier in improving surgical outcomes by Naeem Soomro, Co-Director in Robotic and Digital Surgery at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

We were also able to witness a live robotic partial nephrectomy, live-streamed into our cylinder for a huge crowd to watch. This was performed by Consultant Urological Surgeon, Ben Challambe, live from Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital in London.

Streamed using Proximie, a technology platform allowing clinicians to virtually ‘scrub in’ to any operating room from anywhere in the world, we were able to display this in the cylinder using Igloo Web, our 360° web browser designed to display any website in an Igloo immersive space.

This drew in the biggest crowd of the event and, thanks to our open-fronted cylindrical solution, everyone was able to witness the surgery at the same time, without having to crowd around a small screen to see.

Using a DaVinci robot, Ben was able to make smaller incisions to remove part of the patient's kidney by controlling the robot’s ‘arms’ from a console, whilst looking down a small telescope at the end of each arm. Having this streamed into a space like a cylinder is ideal for training, as you can get groups of people to view the surgery at the same time, in a safe environment, out of the way of the surgeon.

The cylinder in question was a 6-metre 270° solution, with two TV screens on each side to enable the whole audience to see. It was equipped with two BirdDog NDI cameras, one facing the cylinder to capture the presenters, and the other at the top of the cylinder facing down to capture demonstrations on the table in the room.

This was used particularly well during a presentation from Professor Adrian Wilson and Ragbir Khaka, both Orthopaedic Specialists, who demonstrated High Tibial Osteotomy for the treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis. While Adrian talked through the procedure to the audience, Raghbir demonstrated how the procedure was performed, with the BirdDog camera streaming live onto the wall of the cylinder behind them both.

We also had a presentation at the show from our very own Rebecca Wade, who discussed the benefits of an Igloo shared immersive space in healthcare settings. Rebecca ran through some of our case studies alongside explaining exactly how these clients have been using, and have benefitted from our technology.

We’re looking forward to sharing more about Igloo in the healthcare world soon. Stay tuned.

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1. Find out how Igloo technology can work for you
   Explore our range of products, including cubes, domes, cylinders, immersive workspaces and Immersive Media Players.
   
   Find out how the Igloo software can take any content from any source in any format and put it into a shared immersive space.
   
   Understand more about the applications for Igloo immersive technology, including collaboration, simulation, visualisation, and experiences.
   
   Check out our collection of case studies and our videos for inspiration.
   
   
2. Learn how you can partner with us
   We’re always on the lookout for content creators who live and breathe the immersive medium - and so our are clients. So, we’d love to hear from you!
   
   If you’re a systems integrator with a client looking to create an immersive installation, find out how our Immersive Media Player can help you. We can help advise on all the quirks as well as the characteristics of immersive installations.
   
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