Aiims Jodhpur, Microsoft to set-up mixed reality lab, pilot remote health tech for remote locations

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Aiims), Jodhpur has partnered with Microsoft India to set up a mixed reality centre of excellence (CoE) in the former’s campus. The partnership will also pilot a remote treatment service at Sirohi, a city about 180km from Jodhpur, which will use mixed reality technologies to test the ability to provide healthcare services to remote locations without reliable healthcare infrastructure.

The mixed reality CoE at Aiims Jodhpur will be used to offer treatments to patients, as well as in training of medical students at the institute. The mixed reality healthcare lab will use HoloLens 2, Microsoft’s connected mixed reality headset, to offer tech-driven medical services to patients and students alike.

Dr Sanjeev Misra, director of Aiims Jodhpur, said that there has been a “rapid transformation in the way healthcare services and medical education are approached,” which has led to the adoption of “interactive and 3D mixed reality environments.”

To be sure, this is not the first time that mixed reality technologies are being used in the Indian healthcare space. In December 2017, Dr Ashish Babhulkar, founder and president of Shoulder and Elbow Society of India, was one of 13 surgeons worldwide who took part in the world’s first mixed reality surgery. The latter saw 13 surgeries conducted collaboratively across 13 countries in 24 hours – led by Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny, France.

The surgery used Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist remote collaboration tool to be conducted.

In November 2020, Dr Babhulkar conducted his first independent mixed reality surgery in India.

Earlier this year, in March, Indian healthcare chain Apollo Hospitals introduced a mixed reality programme titled ProHealthDeepX, which will use HoloLens in conjunction with Apollo’s own artificial intelligence health metrics to generate a cardiac health score. This score will take into account factors such as a patient’s existing health problems, in order to help reduce the threat of cardiac arrests and strokes.

Last month, Indian cancer research and care group Healthcare Global Enterprises launched its Extended Reality Lab in HCG Cancer Hospital, Bengaluru. The latter also includes a remote medical collaboration feature, which would allow specialists located in any part of the world to help facilitate treatments in any part of the country.