Staff at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are using Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed-reality headsets to assist them in treating COVID-19 patients safely.

The Hololens and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist capabilities allow frontline healthcare teams at the trust to see everything the doctor treating patients can see, while remaining at a safe distance.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which includes Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital and St Mary’s Hospital, stated that using HoloLens has reduced the amount of time staff are spending in high-risk areas by up to 83 per cent.

The mixed reality headsets have also led to a reduction in the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) being used, as only the doctor wearing the headset is required to wear protective clothes, with early estimates suggesting that HoloLens is saving up to 700 items of PPE per ward, per week.

Rather than put users in a fully computer-generated world, as virtual reality does, HoloLens allows users to place 3D digital models in the room alongside them and interact with them using gestures, gaze and voice.

James Kinross, a consultant surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare and senior lecturer at Imperial College London, who has been using HoloLens for many years at the hospital, said: “In March, we had a hospital full of COVID-19 patients.

"Doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals providing ward care had a high risk of exposure to the virus and many became ill," he continued. “Protecting staff was a major motivating factor for this work, but so was protecting patients - if our staff are ill they can transmit disease and they are unable to provide expert medical care to those who needed it most.”

Kinross explained that he had used HoloLens before in surgery and realised staff could take advantage of its hands-free telemedicine capabilities.

Using Remote Assist, doctors wearing HoloLens on COVID-19 wards can hold hands-free Teams video calls with colleagues and experts anywhere in the world. They can receive advice, interacting with the caller and the patient at the same time, while medical notes and x-rays can also be placed alongside the call in the wearer’s field of view.

“We’re now looking into other areas where we can use HoloLens because it is improving healthcare without removing the human; you still have a doctor next to your bed, treating you,” Kinross said. “Patients like it, too; they are interested in this new piece of technology that’s helping them.”

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