Unlocking New Health Opportunities with Apple Vision Pro

Lolita M. Pyron

Apple Vision Pro

Better patient outcomes, more cost savings, more research opportunities, and more efficiency have all been benefits of medical institutions and developers utilizing Apple’s pioneering frameworks and technologies for decades. The healthcare community has brought about meaningful change by utilizing iPads to reduce costs and shorten NICU stays, allowing newborns to spend more time with their families. Similarly, nurses have been able to improve medication administration and respond faster to alerts and alarms with the help of iPhones.

With Apple Vision Pro, developers can now create experiences that can improve people’s lives in any setting, from the comfort of their own homes to the precision of medical clinics. By fusing digital and physical elements invisibly, Vision Pro reveals limitless spatial experiences. Thanks to visionOS’s one-of-a-kind features, app developers in the healthcare industry are making things happen in fields like clinical education, training, medical imaging, mental health, and more.

Apple’s VP of worldwide developer relations, Susan Prescott, expressed her excitement about the healthcare community’s amazing apps for Apple Vision Pro. “New possibilities are being ignited for physicians, frontline workers, and even students by the imagination and drive of our developers, coupled with the technical capabilities of vision. We are excited to see what the future holds.”

Among the many health and wellness apps available for Apple Vision Pro right now, here are just a handful.

Education and Planning for Surgery

The aging population will likely cause the annual number of knee and hip replacement surgeries to surpass 1 million.1 Improved patient outcomes, such as less discomfort and shorter recovery times, can be achieved when surgeons utilize Stryker’s Mako SmartRobotics during whole knee, partial knee, or hip replacement procedures, as opposed to conventional joint replacement methods. By integrating with Apple Vision Pro and the iPhone, Stryker’s new myMako software gives surgeons more options outside of the operating room. With myMako, surgeons have access to an advanced, interactive visual experience that lets them see and examine patients’ Mako surgical plans whenever they need it, allowing for better preparation.

Surgeons can now have 3D-native, intuitive, and dynamic access to detailed information on surgical plans with the myMako app for Apple Vision Pro. “This level of insight — anytime, anywhere — was previously not possible,” said Robert Cohen, president of Digital, Robotics, and Enabling Technologies at Stryker. As part of Stryker’s commitment to improving healthcare, “Apple Vision Pro” and other market-leading supporting technologies like Mako SmartRobotics “hold the exciting potential to transform the way surgeons think about preoperative planning and the intraoperative experience.”

Boston Children’s Hospital created an all-encompassing learning experience in a secure, globally accessible virtual setting to help healthcare personnel with some of the current issues with onboarding and training. Created for Apple Vision Pro, CyranoHealth highlights abilities connected to new medical technology, such as medical infusion pumps, which can assist frontline workers, like nurses, to feel more confident and less anxious. Learners can become acquainted with cutting-edge healthcare technologies through this immersive, multi-sensory method, which better equips them to handle real-world obstacles.

Using spatial computing, CyranoHealth is reshaping healthcare worker education by providing realistic simulations to improve retention and prevent burnout. According to John Brownstein, Ph.D., chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s, the app is a giant step forward in healthcare training because it combines technology and medicine to produce a workforce that is prepared for the future.

Apple Vision Pro

There are other applications used for surgical teaching and planning, such as:

Basic Surgery, which uses spatial computing to teach surgeons how to use Apple Vision Pro.
The CollaboratOR 3D system developed by KARL STORZ improves surgical education and enables groups to train more effectively.
Elsevier’s Complete HeartX, developed specifically for Apple Vision Pro, offers an immersive and interesting learning experience by exploring the complexities of the human body.

With Insight Heart, users can gain unprecedented insight into the human heart. By utilizing ARKit, users can effortlessly scan their physical environment, view 3D hearts created from CT data, and delve into a range of cardiac disorders.

“At Apple, we believe technology can play a vital role in the evolution of healthcare,” stated Sumbul Desai, MD, Apple’s VP of Health. Using Apple Vision Pro, health developers can enhance procedural planning, education, and outcomes by transforming a user’s space, displaying 3D items at real size, and seeing all important data in one view. The possibilities are unlimited.

Cooperation and Efficiency

View immersive, interactive holograms of the human body obtained through medical scans in their real-world context with the Cinematic Reality app on Apple Vision Pro from Siemens Healthineers. This technology is useful for surgeons, medical students, and patients. The program incorporates state-of-the-art path-tracing technology into Metal, harnessing the power of the M2 CPU. It simulates the interaction of light with virtual objects, resulting in incredibly lifelike lighting and reflections.

“Cinematic Reality allows individuals to fully immerse themselves in a world of photorealistic renderings of the human anatomy,” stated Christian Zapf, head of digital and automation at Siemens Healthineers. With its excellent versatility and stand-alone functionality, Apple Vision Pro flawlessly captures that three-dimensional experience. The technique has enormous promise for both academic and medical settings, in our opinion.

Whether it’s learning about a patient’s medical history or discovering ways to help them have better health outcomes, medical records are essential to the work of any doctor. The Epic Spatial Computing Concept for Apple Vision Pro is a new product from Epic Systems, an EHR provider. It enables doctors and clinicians to streamline charting, lab reviews, secure chat, and In Basket workflows with the use of natural gestures like tapping fingers to choose, flicking wrists to scroll, or typing with voice commands.

“Developing the first electronic health record experience for spatial computing was an exciting project for our developers,” stated Seth Howard, Epic’s senior vice president of research and development. Apple Vision Pro will allow doctors to have more interactive and immersive experiences with their patient’s medical records. We are open to hearing from doctors about how they envision this technology enhancing healthcare in the future.

Here are some more apps that can help with productivity and collaboration:

With Visage Ease VP, diagnostic imaging and multimedia may take advantage of fully immersive spatial experiences. UC San Diego Health was the first healthcare system to conduct a pilot program using the technology, which aimed to enhance patient care by identifying areas for improvement, such as the creation of collaborative spaces in healthcare and the improvement of wasteful tumor board reviews.

The potential of spatial viewing in medical imaging is unleashed by Falcon Vue, which works across all modalities.

With Medivis’s SurgicalAR Vision, now available in Apple Vision Pro, medical imaging can be improved to aid in precise surgeries and better care for patients.

Mental Wellness and Health

When it comes to helping patients with their mental health, Cedars-Xaia Sinai’s software makes excellent use of Apple Vision Pro’s special features. Xaia facilitates conversational mental health care with its trained digital avatar in soothing spatial settings where users can also practice meditation and deep breathing. Anyone can participate in the immersive therapy sessions; it doesn’t matter if they want to stay in their own home or turn it into a tranquil beach scene. The app’s fundamental principle is privacy; it does not ask for any sensitive medical or personal data.

Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, director of Health Services Research, and director of the master’s degree program in Health Delivery Science at Cedars-Sinai, described Apple Vision Pro’s breathtaking display as “a quantum leap beyond previous technologies” and a window into a realm of immersive, interactive behavioral health support. Xaia harnesses the whole spectrum of vibrant colors and every pixel of that incredible resolution to create an immersive treatment experience that is both fascinating and intensely intimate. Our team was able to radically rethink how spatial computing may promote mental health and general wellness with the help of this incredible tool.

Apple Vision Pro

Some further applications in the field of mental health and wellness are:

The Apple Vision Pro app called “Mindfulness” can create a soothing, immersive setting for its users.

The TRIPP platform provides enlightening images for Vision Pro and Spatial Audio for guided breathing exercises and a better night’s sleep.

Healium, a maker of exquisitely crafted experiences for Vision Pro, aids users in unwinding and fostering resilience through the formation of pleasurable recollections of escapes into nature.

Odio is a tool that can help people concentrate, unwind, or get a good night’s sleep by projecting stunning 3D pictures into their environment using Spatial Audio and simple motions.

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