While some customers are returning their Apple Vision Pro headsets just weeks after its release on Feb. 2 due to what they say is a clunky design, San Diego-based Sharp Healthcare is exploring its use in the healthcare sector. The creation of Sharp’s Healthcare Spatial Computing Center of Excellence program was announced earlier this month with the intent of bringing the benefits of spatial computing to healthcare and finding new ways to augment patient care using Apple’s Vision Pro.
“Apple’s new Vision Pro headset can already be used to display medical records, filling a doctor’s field of view with anything from graphs of a patient’s blood pressure over time to the results of their latest chest X-ray,” San Diego Union-Tribune’s Paul Sission reports on Feb. 5. The headset has “[u]ltra high-resolution screens for each eye and multiple cameras for hand and eye tracking,” Sission writes.
EHR vendor Epic and Dutch information analytics firm Elsevier are working with Sharp on the project. “[t]hey will investigate how spatial computing will enhance effectiveness, productivity, collaboration, education and treatments across a wide range of specialties and clinical roles, from the doctor's office and operating room to bedside care and caregiver education,” per a PR Newswire report on Feb. 9.
"Using Apple Vision Pro, you can immediately imagine the amazing and far-reaching implications of this technology for the practice and delivery of medicine," says Chris Howard, president and chief executive of Sharp HealthCare, in a statement.
"Spatial computing will fundamentally change how doctors practice medicine," Tommy Korn, M.D., a board-certified ophthalmologist with Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group, declares in a statement. "As we continue to explore the opportunities for applications on Apple Vision Pro, it will enable surgeons like me to transcend the limitations of traditional care, enhancing the safety and precision for our patients like never before. This marks the dawn of an era where health care finally leads the way in digital transformation. The future is here."
