{"id":917454,"date":"2023-05-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=917454"},"modified":"2023-08-04T08:47:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T15:47:32","slug":"3d-telemedicine-brings-better-care-to-underserved-and-rural-communities-even-across-continents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/3d-telemedicine-brings-better-care-to-underserved-and-rural-communities-even-across-continents\/","title":{"rendered":"3D telemedicine brings better care to underserved and rural communities, even across continents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Chris Stetkiewicz (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Writer\/Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n Providing healthcare in remote or rural areas is challenging, particularly specialized medicine and surgical procedures. Patients may need to travel long distances just to get to medical facilities and to communicate with caregivers. They may not arrive in time to receive essential information before their medical appointments and may have to return home before they can receive crucial follow-up care at the hospital. Some patients may wait several days just to meet with their surgeon. This is a very different experience from that of urban or suburban residents or people in more developed areas, where patients can get to a nearby clinic or hospital with relative ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years, telemedicine has emerged as a potential solution for underserved remote populations. The COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented many caregivers and patients from meeting in person, helped popularize virtual medical appointments. Yet 2D telemedicine (2DTM) fails to fully replicate the experience of a face-to-face consultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To improve the quality of virtual care, researchers from Microsoft worked with external partners in Scotland to conduct the first validated clinical use of a novel, real-time 360-degree 3D telemedicine system (3DTM). This work produced three studies beginning in 2020, in which 3DTM based on Microsoft\u2019s HoloportationTM<\/sup><\/a> communication technology outperformed a 2DTM equivalent. Building on the success of this research, the collaborators conducted a follow-up trial in 2022 with partners in Ghana, where they demonstrated the first intercontinental use of 3DTM. This research provides critical progress toward increasing access to specialized healthcare for rural and underserved communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dramatic expansion of virtual medicine (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> helped fill a void created by COVID restrictions, but it also underscored the need for more realistic remote consultations. While 2DTM can extend the reach of specialized medicine, it fails to provide doctors and surgeons with the same quantity and quality of information they get from an in-person consultation. Previous research efforts had theorized that 3DTM could raise the bar, but the advantages were purely speculative. Until now, real-time 3DTM had been proposed within a research setting only, because of constraints on complexity, bandwidth, and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December 2019, researchers from Microsoft began discussing the development of a 3DTM system leveraging Microsoft Holoportation\u2122 communication technology with collaborators from the Canniesburn Plastic Surgery Unit (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> in Glasgow, Scotland, and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (KBTH) in Accra, Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the emergence of COVID-19 in early 2020, this effort accelerated as part of Microsoft Research\u2019s COVID response, with the recognition that it would allow patients, including those with weakened immune systems, to visit a specialist remotely from the relative safety of a local physician\u2019s office, rather than having to travel to the specialist at a hospital with all the concurrent risk of infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIntroduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3DTM beats 2DTM in Scotland trials<\/h2>\n\n\n\n