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Augmented Reality and Its Future in Healthcare
Ricardo Ghantous
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, American University of Beirut
ENGL 203: Academic English
Dr. Charline Elias
April 28, 2024
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As someone who generally enjoys keeping up with recent technology, it is not every day
that I see an interesting new concept. When I first saw the Apple Vision Pro (Apple’s Augmented
Reality Headset), I started to think of how it will affect our lives. I saw how AR could help be
more efficient and comfortable while working. Personally, when I saw this, I thought of how it
would translate into different fields like sports training, modeling, and entertainment. I decided
to pursue the involvement of AR in healthcare. While augmented reality has enormous potential
for transforming medical training, increasing patient care, and improving clinical results, its
implementation comes with severe hazards, ethical challenges, and regulatory concerns. Despite
these challenges, exploring the future of AR in healthcare is essential. What I would like to find
out is, does augmented reality have a future in healthcare?
Before I could develop my own opinions, I needed to inform myself of the leading
developers of this technology and where it is being used. I began by reading the article “Towards
Wearable Augmented Reality in Healthcare: A Comparative Survey and Analysis of HeadMounted Displays” (Baashar et al., 2023, p. 1). I learnt that the two most dominant tech
companies in this field are Microsoft with ‘HoloLens’ and Google with ‘Google Glass’. The use
cases are divided into 3 groups: Intraoperative, Preoperative, and Postoperative as stated by
Baashar. Intraoperative uses, applications during surgeries, revolved around spinal surgery, heads
up visualizations, tracking of tumors and general help with navigating information during a
surgery. Preoperative uses, applications before surgery, revolved around training cases like
‘nursing skills training program’ referred to in table 1 of the article. And finally postoperative
uses, applications after surgery, included remote medical scribes and tracking patient data more
precisely. According to the use cases given in “Table 1” (Baashar et al., 2023, p. 6) and “Table 2”
(Baashar et al., 2023, p. 9) Google Glass has a bigger focus on postoperative uses being lighter
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with a smaller screen as shown on the diagram and HoloLens, with a bigger screen and
comfortable, has more intra operative uses. As I begin to understand how AR is being
implemented in healthcare, I am surprised at its vast implementations into the many categories of
healthcare. I was specifically interested in intraoperative uses like the tracking of tumors.
Something I did question was the mentioning of how much more efficient communications
would be with patients, since there are already many forms of communication that could be used.
The study might have been comparing doctor-patient meetings to in person, scheduled meetings
instead of online calls. The article also did not go into depth on the possible risks of using AR,
specifically autopsies and intraoperative uses. The next step of my research will be to view the
negative aspects of AR and to find any possible mishaps that may have happened previously.
Wanting to learn more about the risks of AR in medicine, I turned to “AR and VR devices
in the healthcare business: legal and ethical challenges” (Manika et al., 2023, p. 1). From this
article, I learnt that AR devices, while providing creative solutions for medical education,
training, and patient care, raise serious privacy and security concerns. The many technologies
used in AR devices need the collecting of extensive biometric data and personal information such
as “usernames, biometric identification, location data, demographic information, personal
preferences and IP addresses.” (Manika et al., 2023, p. 2) This large collection of data increases
the possibility of data breaches and other illegal access jeopardizing the privacy of the patient’s
information. Furthermore, relying on AR for real time data during intraoperative use poses a
huge hazard since any malfunction of the information could lead to a serious safety risk.
Personally, according to what I learnt in this article, the risks of AR malfunctioning are risks that
the implementation of any sort of technology would have. Whether it be ‘HoloLens’ or a
computer with a database, they can both be hacked, and information can be leaked. Although I
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do agree with the statement “The use of AR/VR devices introduces new privacy concerns due to
the diverse technologies involved and the extensive and sensitive data collected” (Manika et al.,
2023 p. 3), where the specific use cases of AR make it more susceptible to sensitive information
like “user’s avatar, which represents their physical appearance, may disclose information such as
race, gender, age, gestures and behavior” (Manika et al., 2023, p.3). Nonetheless, according to
the previously attained knowledge of how life changing AR could be, I am heavily inclined to
support the usage of Augmented reality headsets. A factor that also plays in favor of AR is the
fact that I struggled finding articles that had negatives and challenges of AR. I would like to
proceed by investigating more of the specific intraoperative uses so that I could evaluate how
risky it is relating it to the information learnt from my second source.
Being interested in exploring the topic of intraoperative uses of AR, I delved into the
article “Current Trends and Beyond Conventional Approaches: Advancements in Breast Cancer
Surgery through Three-Dimensional Imaging, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and the
Emerging Metaverse” (Żydowicz et al., 2024, p. 1). Focusing on the section of AR, I learnt that
AR can be used in diagnostic methods as well as furthering my knowledge on tumor localization
and tracking. By superimposing clinical images onto patients, the doctors can visualize internal
organs or bone structures in real-time. As mentioned, “the healthcare sector demonstrates
substantial savings in costs and time through implementation of AR systems” (Żydowicz et al.,
2024, p. 4). Not only has the introduction of AR helped doctors, but most importantly, it has
caused the accuracy of diagnosis significantly higher than any other traditional method. As
shown in the following table, (Żydowicz et al., 2024, p. 4), ROI-ICP augmented method had the
highest accuracy with a much lower ‘lowest percentage accuracy’. To answer the question stated
at the start, the answer would be yes, by a landslide. I was surprised to see that AR is having such
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a powerful change and already having a strong presence in surgeries. From the information
provided by the text, I have understood that the use of AR does not bring revolutionary medical
practices but instead brings comfort, precision, and a seamless integration of patient data to the
industry. Since the job of AR in healthcare currently is to improve specific practices, I am
starting to think about if the risk is worth the increased efficiency and comfort. As I try to find
the answer to this question, I would like to further my knowledge on the presumably less risky
side of preoperative uses, especially the use of AR in the training and education of healthcare
workers.
Using the article “Effectiveness of Using Augmented Reality for Training in the Medical
Professions: Meta-analysis” (Baashar et al., 2022), I was able to gain insightful knowledge on
the effectiveness of AR on learning, training, knowledge, confidence, performance time and
satisfaction. The study was able to do this through a rigorous analysis of 13 studies. While AR
did not outperform the traditional methods of education, it did in all the other categories. AR was
found to reduce performance time and increase satisfaction of the practitioners. Most importantly
AR helped significantly increase the confidence of the trainees, which is an extremely important
trait to have in the medical industry. As expected, AR’s effect on medical training was highly
valuable with little to no risks since personal data does not have to be used. From what I have
been reading, AR seems to have a great effect on healthcare. My understanding has made me
think of how I would benefit from using AR in my own circumstances specifically this source
made me see how using it to visualize complex physics problems. Although I do think this text
had weaknesses as mentioned like their lack of controlled teaching methods between studies,
“the 13 trials we evaluated used different teaching and training methods for their control groups,
which could lead to significant heterogeneity” (Baashar et al., 2022, p. 10). This difference in
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approaches made the conclusions the author came to somewhat inaccurate since having different
teaching methods alters the corresponding analyzed efficiency of AR. As someone who values
the understanding of problems and the complexity of the solutions, I see the benefits of AR since
it helps in those exact situations. Since I feel confident with my knowledge of AR’s
implementations in healthcare, I still feel like I lack a grasp of the dangers and restrictions that
come with it. Hence, I will be focusing my last source on discovering the ethical and legal
restrictions of AR.
As I wanted to further expand my knowledge on the downsides of AR and having already
read about the privacy risks, I investigated the article “Intraoperative application of mixed and
augmented reality for digital surgery: a systematic review of ethical issues” (Ursin et al., 2024),
to give me insight into ethical and legal issues. To begin with, this article reinstated the risks
previously discussed while elaborating and giving examples from studies like “Panelists agreed
that there is a lack of framework or experience within most institutions for the setting up of fair
partnerships between healthcare and commercial entities. They highlighted issues surrounding
inequality of power and differing motives between hospitals and commercial companies” (Ursin
et al., 2024, p. 13). The author goes over the factors of risk like operating conditions,
communication skills, professionalism, and informed consent. These factors are what cause AR
headsets to malfunction or get hacked. Each of the issues is analyzed and some preventative
measures are suggested. This article made me realize that AR headsets are not perfect or even
close to it. There are still a lot of imperfections and things that can go wrong. I learnt specifically
from this source that the technology is not the only thing that is putting patients at risk, but it is
the wearer and the people working with the technology and their relationship with each other that
decide whether AR will have a positive impact or not. A quote that stuck was from one of the
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studies that stated, “Another issue is surgical competence, where inexperienced surgeons may
use MR/AR without standardized certification of digital surgery training” (Ursin et al., 2024, p.
14). This Quote made me realize that AR is and will be an augmentation and not a shortcut.
Healthcare practitioners will still have to make sure they are well educated and trained before
being able to use AR intraoperatively.
After learning how AR is being used in healthcare and their risks, I have concluded that
AR headsets are still an early technology which if used right can benefit the world severely. On
the other hand, if used wrongly, surgeons might rely too heavily on technology and be more
prone to error and mistakes, putting patients’ lives at risk. When I started exploring this topic, I
thought that the risks that came with AR would be the technology glitching and other software
related bugs. Now I know that the technology itself doesn’t bring many risks, it is the way it is
used that could be detriment to the safety of others. Now to answer the first question I asked
whether augmented reality has a future in healthcare. After my extensive research I would say
that the future has already begun. AR is already in hospitals being used to track tumors, diagnose
breast cancer, aid during spinal surgeries. Not only that but it is already in universities shortening
the learning curve of students all around the world. The next question to answer is whether that
future is bright or not.
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References
Baashar, Y., Alkawsi, G., Ahmad, W. N., Alhussian, H., Alwadain, A., Capretz, L. F., Babiker,
A., & Alghail, A. (2022). Effectiveness of using augmented reality for training in the
medical professions: Meta-analysis. JMIR Serious Games, 10(3).
https://doi.org/10.2196/32715
Baashar, Y., Alkawsi, G., Wan Ahmad, W. N., Alomari, M. A., Alhussian, H., & Tiong, S. K.
(2023). Towards wearable augmented reality in Healthcare: A Comparative Survey and
analysis of head-mounted displays. International Journal of Environmental Research and
Public Health, 20(5), 3940. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20053940
Manika, E., Michalopoulou, L., & Spoliotis, A. (2023). Innovative Image Sensors Engineered for
AR/VR: Meeting the Challenges of Wearable Devices.
https://doi.org/https://www.ibanet.org/AR-VR-devices-in-the-healthcare-business
Ursin, F., Timmermann, C., Benzinger, L., Salloch, S., & Tietze, F.-A. (2024). Intraoperative
application of mixed and augmented reality for digital surgery: A systematic review of
ethical issues. Frontiers in Surgery, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsurg.2024.1287218
Żydowicz, W. M., Skokowski, J., Marano, L., & Polom, K. (2024). Current trends and beyond
conventional approaches: Advancements in breast cancer surgery through threedimensional imaging, virtual reality, augmented reality, and the emerging metaverse.
Journal of Clinical Medicine, 13(3), 915. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13030915