XRHealth offers virtual reality and augmented reality solutions to hospitals, healthcare facilities, and patients and provides an engaging, therapeutic experience that helps alleviate pain, improve motor function, assess cognitive functioning, and encourages overall wellness and health. Both the VRHealth and ARHealth portals offer real-time analytics so that healthcare practitioners could evaluate patient progress and have clear insights on patient data.

“The Allscripts and XRHealth partnership will provide doctors one platform to view all critical patient information,” says Eran Orr, CEO of XRHealth. “All patient health records and data will be in one location so that medical professionals can easily see how therapies are helping their patients and can make necessary adjustments in real-time. The partnership marks the first time, worldwide, that VR/AR apps will be an integral part of an EHR platform.”

“Allscripts is excited about the opportunity to partner with XRHealth. We’re looking forward to bringing their innovative VR and AR applications to market for our clients through the Allscripts Developer Program,” says Tina Joros, Vice President & General Manager Open and Allscripts Practice Financial Platform.

The Allscripts Developer Program (ADP) offers both proprietary and FHIR® enabled APIs to connect third-party applications, devices and other innovative healthcare technologies with Allscripts products. Allscripts has been supporting API integration since 2007 and is enabling over a billion data exchanges each year ­– the largest documented utilization of APIs in healthcare.

1. AR is growing

The Venture Reality Fund now tracks more than 380 companies on the AR landscape, a 33% increase from 2018. Apple has been slow to launch its rumored AR hardware technology, but others aren’t waiting.

2. HMD (head-mounted display) AR is in a transition

It is moving from the first generation to a new generation. As a result, early players like Daqri, CastAR, and ODG shut down and Meta was resurrected as MetaView.

Current generation AR companies like MagicLeap and RealWear continue to be funded and Microsoft is about to release Version 2 of Hololens, which the Venture Reality Fund believes will have a big impact in further AR enterprise adoption.

For consumers, companies are launching specialized hardware, like North’s Focals smart glasses, Form’s AR swimming goggles or Bose AR’s audio-only sunglasses.

Neither Microsoft, Magic Leap nor others have announced when their consumer versions will be available. General purpose HMD AR devices are still a year or two away.

3. Enterprise continues growth trajectory

For software, the main growth is in enterprise solutions and content creation tools across multiple sectors, including automotive, pharmaceutical, and healthcare, among others. The US Army’s $479 million contract with Microsoft Hololens in late 2018 is the biggest validation of enterprise value of AR.

4. AR needs new types of content

The tools category saw expansion of general-purpose tools and for new content forms – specifically volumetric capture. The increased interest in volumetric capture content, which works for both AR and VR, is partially driven by 5G networks capabilities.

5. Consumer AR content is alive and well

Consumer AR fun continues to grow, mostly on mobile devices. Games are a big hit, such as Niantic’s Pokemon Go and Harry Potter Wizards Unite, Tencent’s Let’s Hunt Monsters in China, and the upcoming Minecraft Earth. And, of course, social hilarity from apps like Snap are growing, giving company’s install base a boost.

6. Mobile AR 2.0 is coming

With next-gen AR cloud-enabled software development kits (SDKs) due at year end, you can expect to see even richer interactions, persistence, global mapping, and multi-user features, all of which will result in a significant uptick in the mobile AR ecosystem.

7. Investments Will Continue

AR is still in early days, but with HMD AR and mobile AR platforms evolution robust ecosystems are building and worthy of continued investment. Overall, AR’s future is bright as we enter a new phase of its growth cycle.

Read the article in Full including use cases from Qualcomm Research.

Louis Aaron Cannon, MD (Cardiac & Vascular Research Center of Northern Michigan, Charlevoix), told TCTMD that the use of robotics may hold the potential to address disparities in population demographics.

“Wealthier people are treated very differently than people that don’t have access to supersubspecialists, and I think robotics is going to help address that,” he commented. “Already we’re developing robotic catheters and different haptics, and all this is going to converge in a situation where we are really going to be able to treat patients better.”

Cannon, who presented a keynote lecture on emerging cath lab trends, said the technology also may be useful in instances where patients in a remote location, who have MI or stroke and no access to an interventional cardiologist or interventional radiologist, could be treated by someone thousands of miles away.

“I think this is potentially going to change what we do in the field of battle; cruise ships also could use this technology because they have large elderly populations at risk,” Cannon observed. “If you just have a lab or a suite and you contract with a large medical institution, you would be able to take care of a patient with an MI or a stroke without having to get a helicopter in to them or move them.”

Gaps in Stroke Care, Improved Patient Experience

According to Cannon, remote care via virtual reality also may be a key to addressing stroke-care needs. He said it is expected that the United States will have an estimated shortage of 61,800 specialists to treat stroke in 2030. Of all US hospitals, only 3.8% are comprehensive stroke centers, leaving most of the nation with limited access to advanced stroke care.

“You can easily picture where you have robots in these areas with an interventional radiologist at the base that can manipulate catheters and take care of a stroke from a 100 or a 1,000 miles way, or on a cruise ship or on an island,” Cannon said. But turning this concept into reality will require, among other things, a system of rapid response, experts skilled in arterial access and catheter manipulation, and strong IT and telecommunications networks.

Virtual reality technology may also directly benefit patients during their procedures.

In a small study, Sudheer Koganti, MD (Citizens Specialty Hospital, Nallagandla, India), and colleagues showed how it can be coupled with mindfulness to decrease sedation needs during diagnostic angiogram for suspected CAD. During the procedure, 30 patients wore a virtual reality headset that allowed them to have a personalized audio/visual experience such as being on a beach or near a quiet lake. No IV sedative was used, and all patients received 100 µg of nitrate into the radial artery. Only one case of radial spasm was documented, with no conversion to femoral access. Pulse and systolic blood pressure did not vary across pre-, intra-, and postprocedural periods. Additionally, pain scores were consistently low and patient satisfaction high. On the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), with 20 being the lowest and 80 being the highest, the average patient score was mild-to-moderate at 50. According to Koganti, after the procedure, several patients asked to be able to use the virtual reality device again for subsequent procedures.

Virtual reality “is feasible, safe, and for the first time ever demonstrated in the literature, efficacious in the cath lab at the time of interventional procedures,” Koganti said in his presentation. Although the study was small and limited to angiograms, he said other procedures that may be good candidates for this type of technology to reduce need for sedation, include PCI, pacemaker implantation, implantable cardioverter defibrillators, and some structural heart interventions, including TAVR.

We should not forget with all these technologies that we’re taking care of human beings.GIORA WIESZ“”

In the same session, Radoslaw Parma, MD, PhD (Medical University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland), showed an early augmented reality attempt that went less smoothly. In the study, glasses worn by the operator were used in an attempt to improve TAVR by providing a patient-specific multislice CT overlay of peripheral vessels. The concept is that the overlays can enhance TAVR operators’ field of vision and aid in selecting optimal arterial segments to perform a safe puncture. The researchers used mixed-reality smart glasses known as HoloLens (Microsoft), but soon learned that they were too heavy, the resolution too low, and the battery life too short to be practical. Despite this, Parma said his group is hopeful that an updated version of the device that is lighter, provides better spatial mapping and allows the operator to pinch, slide, and push the overlay may prove more useful.

No Replacement for ‘Human Touch’

Panelist Giora Weisz, MD (Montefiore Medical Center, New York, NY), noted that communication will be the key to the success of remote or augmented reality procedures, to ensure that the operator has access to all patient data, including imaging “integrated in real time.”

Clearly more study is needed before many of these new technologies are ready for prime time, but panelist Chaim S. Lotan, MD (Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel), observed that the future may be here before we know it.

“I’m looking at my smart phone and thinking just 10 years ago, where were we?” he said. In the digital revolution, “things are going to change tremendously.” Lotan then wondered aloud whether robots may someday replace physicians completely in the cath lab.

But Weisz countered that while machines can do many things as well as men and women, that sentiment is not true for one thing: human touch. “We should not forget with all these technologies that we’re taking care of human beings,” he said.

There is little argument that automation, artificial intelligence, and other innovations will revolutionize the way that we think about “work.” In fact, some believe that the entire concept of “work” will be reimagined and re-examined in the near future, once industrial AR and VR applications take root. In this article, the following topics are considered meetings, training, retail, design and marketing and

Changing “Meetings”

First and foremost, augmented reality will change the way that meetings are conducted. We all might understand that videoconferencing is essential to large corporations because of the fact that they might have interests all over the globe, but augmented reality will allow for a new level of collaboration with respect to various projects.

If media needs to be viewed by all participants, augmented reality can allow for that capability.

A random wall can now act as a virtual “whiteboard” for a meeting, as well. Augmented reality may not only bring a new “excitement” to work meetings and videoconferencing, but it can help provide more context and information to a meeting that might not previously have been there.

It doesn’t matter whether you need to immediate share a 3D model or a contract with employees thousands of miles away; augmented reality can make this happen quicker and more efficiently than ever, which will lead to increased productivity.

Changing “Training”

Though it might sound outdated, there are plenty of jobs and situations that require a user manual. Augmented reality allows for digital information to be superimposed on the real world and provide new perspective and context to training.

It’s also a great way to make sure that new employees are completely engaged in the training process.

There are always organizations that require onboarding, which can be confusing or awkward for new employees, as a veteran employee might quickly explain aspects of the workplace needs to understand. Augmented reality can allow for a workplace to be “unlocked”, and virtual instructions to be given in a clear manner that can continually be accessed.

In fact, it seems very clear that an automated augmented reality training experience could end up saving organizations a tremendous amount of money and time. There is also the idea of “performance

support” for various occupations. It doesn’t matter if you are a repairmen or a doctor – the idea of accessing real-time data through either industrial VR or AR can help with overall training and performance, and enhance your capability as an employee.

The Future Of “Retail”, Design, and Marketing

There are many companies that struggle when it comes to conveying a message to the consumer, which is why so many marketing and advertising dollars are spent on trying to educate and convince customers about the values of their goods and/or services.

Both augmented reality and virtual reality will allow consumers to potentially find out more information simply by pointing their smartphone at a product, for example.

Imagine if a grocery shopper is only interested in gluten-free products.

This will undoubtedly change the way that retail employees work, as augmented reality might help communicate information that allows for retail employees to handle other tasks and achieve other goals.

There are companies that might be able to highlight certain products for discerning consumers.

For example, let’s say that you are vegan. What if you walked into a grocery store, and augmented reality, through the grocery store’s app, would help you use your devices to find out which products were vegan or not.

Similarly, there could be a virtual reality headset, where you put on a headset, and vegan products can be highlighted to consumers.

This can clearly make for a more pleasant and productive shopping experience, and will also change the way that product designers and marketers work, as well, as they will have to take this into consideration.

There are already companies that are utilizing AR to allow shoppers to “try out” their products. One obvious example is IKEA, a well-known multinational company that both designs and sells furniture.

The IKEA app literally allows users to “place” furniture in their homes, using augmented reality, to find out whether furniture might be compatible with a certain room.

Industrial VR: Conclusion

We all live in reality, but that reality is changing because of technology. There are many companies that are already developing industrial VR/AR-related services, and the truth is that the global industry is only growing, expected to hit over $800 billion by 2025.

It doesn’t matter whether we are speaking about the media/entertainment sector, the retail sector, education sector, or the tech sector – both industrial VR and AR will be implemented more than ever in the coming years.

Work is already changing, in the sense that it is becoming more “flexible” than ever.

Millennials are becoming a more important factor in the workplace than ever before, and flexibility is something that they are prioritizing more than ever, whether it involves working from home or hours that they can adjust.

In conclusion, virtual reality and augmented reality will change the way that organizations operate. It will change the way that meetings are conducted, strategies are prepared, consumers are persuaded, and documents are viewed and accessed.

While time will tell exactly how AR and VR industrial applications will reshape the way that work gets done, whether it involves training, repair, design, or otherwise, one thing is for sure: it will be reshaped, and this reshaping is already underway.

“Now we can propose to our clients an innovative solution, dedicated to customers and clients working remotely. XMReality allows us to remotely assist our customers regardless of place and time in an easy manner”, says Marco Maroso, Business Development of Aiuto Tecnologico.

“We are happy to start this cooperation with OA Service, enabling us to combine our skills and offerings to improve digital services among our end users, while at the same time accessing the Italian market”, says Johan Castevall, CEO of XMReality.

Under the initiative, technicians will use RealWear HMT-1 headsets in conjunction with LibreStream Onsight Connect software, allowing them to connect hands-free with Renault Trucks’ technical support for live assistance.

It will also enable them to capture images and videos, playback training videos and refer to manuals.

Derek Leech, service, market and retail development director, said: “Optiview is an exciting step for Renault Trucks, marking a new era where wearable AR (augmented reality) and voice command technology becomes the norm in our workshops and out in the field.

“The headset is the ideal wearable choice for technicians, giving them the support of the technical team right when they need it to speed up diagnosis and repair on complex issues.

“This technology will improve the efficiency of our dealer network and our customer service, resolving issues more swiftly.”

Leech adds: “The possibilities to transform the way we work with this technology are far-reaching, from hands-free inspections and voice activated report writing, to creating live step-by-step instructions.”

Earlier this year Renault Trucks’ managing director Carlos Rodrigues told Commercial Fleet that it will become a driving force in the “electromobility revolution”.

He believes that now is the right time for urban fleets to switch to electric, with vehicles available from 3.1 tonnes to 26 tonnes.

Fink writes: “This one is fairly straightforward.  Instead of solution providers like Upskill, Scope AR, Wikitude, and UbiMAX, developing for one specific device, Qualcomm will help them create solutions for their Snapdragon XR chips, making enterprise solutions much more portable across platforms. On the OEM side, Vuzix, nReal, and RealWear are part of the program.

The Qualcomm XR Enterprise Program allows enterprise solution providers to be part of a global community that offers access to technical support resources, promotional opportunities, co-marketing, joint planning and business development and matchmaking with other members for the collective goal of accelerating the enterprise XR segment to help increase operational efficiencies, worker satisfaction & safety and impact the bottom line. Since Qualcomm is already the common denominator across all head mounted displays (HMDs) including Oculus’ new standalone Quest VR, and enterprise HMDs like HoloLens 2 and Glass Enterprise Edition 2, it makes sense for them to leverage this unique position to support market growth.

Qualcomm promotes virtual collaboration and other applications for its Snapdragon XR technology. “Qualcomm Technologies views the enterprise as a critical segment for growing the overall XR industry and we are committed to furthering adoption by bringing together the best hardware and software solutions providers to meet the respective demands of a business’ function and use cases,” said Brian Vogelsang, senior director of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We are excited to be working with companies enabling solutions for the enterprise customer by optimizing performance, productivity and improving accuracy and safety in areas such as field service, maintenance and repair, inspection, assembly, material handling, remote collaboration, data visualization and training.”

“Through the Qualcomm XR Enterprise Program, we’ve received access to hardware prototypes, technology roadmaps, access to new features like eye-tracking and had the opportunity to showcase our technology to enterprise partners,” said Tony Bevilacqua, CEO and founder, Cognitive3D.

The Qualcomm XR Enterprise Program will provide members with Qualcomm Technologies-supported benefits including XR industry insights, connections with end customers, visibility into upcoming Qualcomm Technologies hardware and software product features and the Qualcomm XR Enterprise Program badge to display on their website and promotional material to identify themselves as companies who are helping to drive excellence in quality and adoption of XR in the enterprise.

Companies wishing to participate in the Qualcomm XR Enterprise Program can find more information here.

A New Approach to Workforce Learning

Anglo American developed its Sustainable Mining Plan in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The UN’s Sustainability Goals relating to education are aimed at ensuring equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education – including university – by 2030.

And, by the same date, the UN also seeks to substantially increase the number of youths and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

According to Jennifer Rogers, Head of Learning at Anglo American, these exciting goals have led to a broad and innovative new approach to workforce learning. Jennifer leads Learning Strategy across the organisation, and is responsible for design, rollout and continued expansion of the newly-formed Learning Ecosystem, designed to enhance workforce development and further solidify people as Anglo American’s largest strategic advantage.

Last year, for example, this work led to an initial implementation of Atheer’s award-winning AR platform on RealWear HMT-1 headset – at the Anglo American Platinum Rustenburg Base Metals Refinery facility in Rustenburg, South Africa.

The Atheer platform allowed workers at the facility to connect via “See-What-I-See” interactive video calls with colleagues in Australia who were subject matter experts in the on-the-job issues that the team in Rustenburg was tackling.

In addition, Anglo American Platinum team members in Rustenburg (such as  RBMR general manager Fortune Mashimbye, shown right) were able to use the platform to receive and use relevant work instructions right in their field of view on their connected AR headsets without having to leave the work they were doing.

“Using Augmented Reality at Anglo American allows us to address some of the key challenges that are vital to the success of our global Sustainable Mining Plan” said Jennifer Rogers. “It provides our workforce with new, language-independent opportunities to learn and develop new skills that will help them transition to the future of work.”

The Next Phase of AR-Driven Learning

From its initial work with AR in 2018, Ms. Rogers said the company realized that while providing access to remote experts and work instructions was definitely a huge benefit, being able to bring the broad base of the company’s learning content to an “augmented workforce” – and capturing and using the learner’s data to further direct and guide their development – would be even more powerful. And thus began a close working relationship between Atheer, Anglo American and industry-leading learning content development and distribution platform Xyleme.

In 2019, Atheer has worked closely with Anglo American to bring content authored in Xyleme into the Atheer platform for use by global Anglo American workforce. The work undertaken by the three companies represents an example of true innovation in learning – leveraging an award-winning AR platform and a rich, full-featured learning content management system (LCMS), content delivery service (CDS) and learning record store (LRS).

Leslie Farinella, Chief Operating Officer at Xyleme, explains how all of these components work together. “Xyleme and Atheer are partnering to take Anglo American learning content into augmented reality,” she said. “Atheer is able to pass content authored in Xyleme’s Learning Content Management System (LCMS) to Atheer work instructions, where it can be accessed by learners via smart glasses or mobile devices. Atheer can capture experience data collected from learners and use our robust APIs to pass it back to Xyleme’s Learning Record Store (LRS) for easy extraction.”

Atheer CEO Amar Dhaliwal said he is excited by the results of the collaboration between the three companies – and sees an exciting opportunity for companies like Anglo American as they begin to realize the full impact of becoming an Augmented Enterprise. “It is not often that you get to do work as ground-breaking and rewarding as this,” he said. “Not only can we help empower Anglo American’s diverse global workforce, but we get the chance to bring the rich body of learning content authored in Xyleme to frontline workers that have typically not been able to use it unless they pulled away completely from their day-to-day work.”

The X2 is an all-in-one hardware and software solution using mixed reality to provide workers from numerous industries the ability to “see” more with the addition of contextual overlays. With its AR solution, ThirdEye intends to target field services, health care, manufacturing, architecture, education and insurance.

ThirdEye claims the X2 Glasses are the smallest MR headset on the market weighing in at only six ounces.

The AR smartglasses also provide a wide, 42-degree field of view (the Microsoft HoloLens 2 has a 43-degree FOV), powerful sensors – including thermal, ambient light and flashlight – as well as built-in simultaneous localization and mapping capabilities. This technology is known as VisionEye SLAM and allows for advanced AR features.

The glasses also include two grey-scale cameras, a high-resolution RGB camera, (13-megapixel), three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis compass.

“Our goal is to become the most recognizable smart glasses in the AR and MR industry, and so far we’ve created the widest field of view in the smallest form factor possible,” said Nick Cherukuri, founder of ThirdEye.

X2 Glasses run on Android and have hundreds of apps available via the ThirdEye App Store. The company has created the platform so that it’s easy to develop for it: Developers can use existing software development kits and application programming interfaces to build apps.

To further ease development, the company also offers ThirdEye Workspace, a powerful enterprise-ready software platform built into the X2 Glasses. With Workspace, developers will have tools that can take advantage of advanced AR/MR capabilities such as live AR remote assistance and 3D SLAM based computer-aided design modeling and overlay.

“The X2 Glasses are unlike anything else on the market right now – between the affordable price tag, powerful technology and beautiful form – we are giving workers all across the enterprise the opportunity to really elevate their level of work,” said Cherukuri. “Coupled with our advanced AR software platform, we’re simultaneously providing companies with nearly 40 percent savings in productivity improvements.”

The X2 Glasses are now available for purchase at a price tag of $1,950. Customers pre-ordering the smartglasses can get a $300 discount on ThirdEye’s website and pre-orders will be available until mass production is complete and shipping begins in October.

XMReality Business is the fastest and easiest way for companies to provide high-quality customer support using video communications and Augmented Reality (AR). Since announcing the pre-launch in June, a number of customers have successfully trialed the service over the summer. Today XMReality Business is being launched commercially.

XMReality Business provides the ability to send links that allow users to quickly connect to any other person for help and instructions, known as Remote Guidance.

“The web client will be perfect for our customers” says Martin Forsberg, Global Support at Arcam, which uses XMReality’s service to provide support to its customers. “You can set up a remote call without them having to install anything.”

“We are seeing a clear trend of steadily increasing video communication via smartphones. By selling XMReality Business online, we are opening up new opportunities to reach more international companies of various sizes. With this new offering we strengthen our position as an international leader in Remote Guidance,” says Johan Castevall, CEO XMReality.

You can start a free trial today at www.xmreality.com/business/. Apps are available for download in the Apple App Store & Google Play Store.  Read XMReality’s AREA member profile for more information about the company.