Did you attend last week’s Microsoft Ignite and watch Satya’s keynote? If so, you might have learned about how Mount Sinai Hospital in New York is using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on Microsoft HoloLens 2 to conduct shared surgery with their surgical counterparts in Uganda. Mixed reality business applications like Dynamics 365 Remote Assist have already been successfully deployed in many industries including manufacturing, automotive, and education. However, its valuable use case in healthcare may be the most critical one yet, augmenting doctors’ abilities to collaborate hands-free with their remote counterparts in real-time with mixed reality and help save lives globally.
Working together in real time, from miles away
Today, more than 5 billion people worldwide do not have access to simple surgical operations. New York’s Mount Sinai Health System employs 38,000 people, including top specialists and surgeons who are determined to help tackle the global lack of access to surgical care. Using HoloLens 2 with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Microsoft Teams, Mount Sinai surgeons in New York connect with colleagues 7,000 miles away in Eastern Uganda, helping bring safe, affordable surgical care to remote areas. To date, this shared surgery method has helped treat more than 500 patients at the Kyabirwa Surgical Centre in Eastern Uganda with important surgical problems and helped diagnose and manage more than 3,000 patients.
“Microsoft Teams, Dynamic 365 Remote Assist, and HoloLens 2 allow us to bring our knowledge into a community, share that knowledge, and make it part of that surgical community on a long-term basis. It helps us create a sustainable program of surgical care.”—Dr. Michael L. Marin, Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief, Mount Sinai Health System
What Mount Sinai Hospital says about mixed reality in healthcare
“To date, we have had a 100 percent success rate. We haven’t had one failed surgery, and a lot of that’s due to the Microsoft technologies we’re using.”—Anna Kalumuna, Director of Operations and Administration, Kyabirwa Surgical Centre
“When the patient was taken into surgery, every decision from what type of incision to make to how to close the skin was discussed via our Teams and Remote Assist connection.”—Dr. Michael L. Marin, Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief, Mount Sinai Health System
“Communication is the lifeline of our shared surgery model. We use Microsoft technologies such as Teams, Dynamic 365 Remote Assist, and HoloLens to share surgery knowledge and expertise in an effective way.”—Dr. Michael L. Marin, Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief, Mount Sinai Health System
“The experience I’ve had as a practicing surgeon using this technology has been like having the eyes of a very senior surgeon who has seen a lot more than me. He is right here with me in the surgery room. He’s seeing the patients I am seeing. He’s seeing the pathology that I am seeing. This is an amazing resource for sharing knowledge.”—Dr. Joseph Okello Damoi, Head Surgeon, Kyabirwa Surgical Centre
Read the full story about how Mount Sinai and Ugandan surgeons work together in real time and bring life-saving expertise to rural communities.
Learn more about mixed reality in healthcare
Be sure to also read another healthcare story for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust which provides acute and specialist healthcare in northwest London for approximately 1.5 million people annually. Like Mount Sinai Hospital, the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust successfully deployed Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 to help doctors cope with the spike in COVID-19 patients during the global pandemic. Using mixed reality solutions enabled their doctors to minimize doctors’ exposure to infected patients, keeping physical contact to a minimum while still enabling the medical team to collaborate on patient care. Hands-free telemedicine is truly poised to be future of healthcare organizations worldwide.
Discover how your organization can similarly leverage Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 to improve patient care, protect frontline workers’ safety and help provide critical medical expertise to underserved regions globally.
