Every day, hospital staff has to manage complex processes to guarantee quality and patient safety. Yet in some areas, the use of checklists and manuals tends to be more cumbersome and not useful – as is the case in sterile processing. A new project studies how augmented reality can take all the necessary information into the staff's field of view.
In this interview with MEDICA-tradefair.com, Dr. René Reiners explains the potential benefits of augmented reality (AR) in sterile processing and defines what augmented reality glasses should look like in this type of application.
Dr. Reiners, who had the idea of using augmented reality in sterile processing?
Dr. René Reiners: The IT4Process Company, the coordinator of our "Smart Glasses in Sterile Processing" project focuses on the digitization of hospital workflows. This also includes sterile processing solutions. Mistakes can definitely happen in this area – for example, if staff did not receive adequate training, when various processes were not practiced enough or simply due to stress. This prompted questions such as how we can improve the quality of computer-assisted sterile processing. And can we make training information accessible again during work processes? Augmented reality approaches are a great way to pinpoint this information. As part of this project, we now intend to check their feasibility in sterile processing. We study both the use of smart glasses where users have a screen right in front of their eyes, as well as actual AR approaches like Microsoft Hololens, which directly project the information into the environment around you. ...
Read the complete interview with Dr. René Reiners at MEDICA-tradefair.com!