Augmented reality can take technology to a new level to improve patient outcomes and the healthcare journey.

Augmented reality, the technology originally popularized as part of simulators and virtual reality games more than a decade ago, is gaining traction today in the pharma space. AR is related to a general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified by a computer. AR is a live view of a real-world environment that is supplemented with computer-generated input, such as sound, video, graphics, or GPS data. Getting information from the Internet by wearing a Google Glass or digital contact lenses would be a huge addition to the practice of medicine. The data can also be used to educate patients to advance patient adherence by tracking disease management and fitness management.

The technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. An image is augmented when some visual graphics or texts are superimposed into the actual real-world view to enhance the user experience in the real environment. The extra information that is provided with the help of augmented reality creates an experience for the user to understand the concept better and acquire more information from the same. Computer-generated graphics — 2D and 3D — are merged with the imagery of the real world and this provides a superior experience to the user in the real world.

In its current form, AR can be used as a Web app enhancement to create 3D images off code readings of a two-dimensional surface. With so many people having access to smartphones, iPad-style tablets with a camera and 3G-or-higher Web access, these interactive 3D displays are becoming an interesting mass-market medium.

Experts say applications range from pharmaceutical reps including AR applications on their business cards and in their brochures for the thousands of iPad-equipped doctors to peruse to creating AR applications to help educate consumers about medical procedures and drug treatments during community outreach programs and trade shows to in situ training to help physicians understand the steps of a procedure or treatment more fully. The technology has reached the point where the possibilities are endless.

Although the adoption of AR is still in its infancy, the technology has matured to a point where organizations can use it as a tool to complement and enhance business processes, workflows, and employee training, according to Gartner. Furthermore, Gartner analysts say AR facilitates business innovation by enabling real-time decision making through virtual prototyping and visualization of content.

“Augmented reality is the real-time use of information in the form of text, graphics, audio, and other virtual enhancements integrated with real-world objects,” says Tuong Huy Nguyen, principal research analyst at Gartner. “AR leverages and optimizes the use of other technologies such as mobility, location, 3D-content management, and imaging and recognition. It is especially useful in the mobile environment because it enhances the user’s senses via digital instruments to allow faster responses or decision-making.”

AR services use various device sensors to identify the users’ surroundings. Current implementations generally fall into one of two categories: location-based or computer vision. Location-based offerings use a device’s motion sensors to provide information based on a user’s location. Computer-vision-based services use facial, object, and motion tracking algorithms to identify images and objects. For example, being able to identify a shoe among numerous objects on a table, Google’s imaged-based search, or optical character recognition (OCR).

Mr. Nguyen says AR provides the highest benefit to efficiency. It has the potential to improve productivity, provide hands-on experience, simplify current processes, increase available information, provide real-time access to data, offer new ways to visualize problems and solutions, and enhance collaboration. IT organizations can use AR to bridge the digital and physical world. AR is an opportunity for IT to provide leadership to enhance the enterprise’s interaction with its internal user base.

Timmy Garde, managing partner and chief operating officer at Calcium, also believes AR can improve efficiency in a few ways, some more obvious than others.

When patients can more easily track their fitness level, overall health, and symptom indicators such as sugar levels or blood pressure, they become more aware of their diet and activities,” he says. “With more knowledge and information readily accessible via AR, patients will understand their health more completely and become more active participants in their own care, which will improve outcomes and adherence. AR improves the knowledge and connectivity of everyone in the health system by opening avenues for interaction and sharing that were previously unavailable.”

AR Adoption

Adam Hanina, CEO of AiCure, says augmented reality is already merging with other fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) and sensors.

“In fact it is moving beyond wearable devices into the environment,” he says. “Adoption of these platforms will be fueled by the economics of software, and by the fact that accurate data will allow health systems to know much more quickly whether a drug is working effectively at the patient level in real-time. Providers will also be able to identify high-risk patients due to behavioral and physiological markers and use the data to automatically trigger appropriate care pathways. The largest impact will be when augmented reality and AI allow for scalable monitoring of large patient populations where early detection of data can be used to prioritize R&D needs or concentrate resources in a particular area.”

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