San Diego’s Sharp HealthCare has created the Spatial Computing Center of Excellence, intended to explore the use of the new Apple Vision Pro in the world of medicine, it was announced Friday.
That Apple product “seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world and unlocks powerful spatial experiences,” a statement from the health care company reads.
“Using Apple Vision Pro, you can immediately imagine the amazing and far-reaching implications of this technology for the practice and delivery of medicine,” said Chris Howard, president and CEO of Sharp HealthCare. “Sharp has long been committed to transforming the health care experience, and Vision Pro is indeed a game changer, so much so that we created a center of excellence dedicated to this effort.”
Sharp and its partners Epic and Elsevier will investigate how spatial computing — augmented reality, which overlays digital information onto a view of the real world, and virtual reality — can change how the medical practice works in a variety of specialties.
“Apple Vision Pro represents a paradigm shift and a quantum leap forward for technology to empower clinicians and other health care professionals,” said Michael Reagin, Sharp’s senior vice president and chief information and innovation officer. “I am excited to see how the Spatial Computing Center of Excellence will bring this to benefit our mission: to be the best place to work, the best place to practice medicine and the best place to receive care.”
The Spatial Computing Center of Excellence is an initiative of the Sharp Prebys Innovation and Education Center, which opened last year. It is intended to bring together a team of doctors, nurses, analysts, software developers, device architects and others who will work to develop, test and deploy solutions across the health care industry.
“Spatial computing will fundamentally change how doctors practice medicine,” said Dr. Tommy Korn, a board-certified ophthalmologist with Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group. “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,” Korn said. “The future is here.”