The 2017 Innovation Pilot Awards were announced on March 23rd and a team from Otolaryngology and Computer Science was selected. Their project entitled “Development of Augmented Reality Applications to Improve Safety and Efficiency in the Operating Room” will receive funds to support this initial startup effort by Austin Rose, MD, Henry Fuchs, PhD, and Jan-Michael Frahm, PhD.
The following summary was included in the press release:
“Leveraging the rapidly developing technology known as augmented reality, this team will develop an augmented reality system for use in both open and endoscopic surgery. Augmented reality is defined as a live direct or indirect view of a physical environment whose elements are augmented by the fusion of computer-generated and real-time images. This augmented reality environment for the operating room would allow for localization of a patient’s specific pathology and normal anatomic landmarks. The ability to super-impose the exact location and dimensions of an underlying tumor, for example, on a surgeon’s direct view of the patient promises to positively impact both efficiency and patient safety in the operating room.”
Click here to read about all the projects funded in 2017.