Augmented Reality Overlay for Clinical Data Retrieval
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern clinical care workflows are fragmented, leading to sub-optimal care outcomes due to forgotten process steps and inaccessible patient information, despite the use of electronic health records.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of virtual environmental augmentation devices, such as Magic Leap One, Oculus Rift, Google Glass, or Microsoft HoloLens, which capture a clinician's field-of-view and overlay relevant patient data and clinical workflows in real-time, enhancing in-the-moment knowledge and improving documentation efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If electronic health records are used to store and access patient information, then information storage capacity is improved, but information accessibility and retrieval speed deteriorate due to the need to click, scroll and navigate through technology
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical interaction of clicking, scrolling, and navigating through electronic health record interfaces with an optical system. Cameras capture images of relevant information, and augmented reality glasses present this information visually in the clinician's field of view, eliminating the need for manual navigation through digital records.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates visual copies of patient information from electronic health records by capturing images with cameras and displaying these copies through augmented reality glasses. This allows clinicians to view information directly without accessing the original digital interface, speeding up retrieval while maintaining access to stored data.
2Loss of information
If multiple information sources are integrated into clinical workflows, then completeness of patient information is improved, but system complexity increases making integration and dissemination difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple information sources (electronic health records, imaging systems, laboratory systems) into a unified augmented reality interface. The system consolidates these disparate sources and presents integrated information through glasses, simplifying the user experience while maintaining data completeness from all underlying systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The augmented reality glasses and camera system serve as an intermediary layer between multiple clinical information systems and the clinician. This intermediary consolidates data from various sources and presents it in a unified visual format, reducing the complexity of direct integration between multiple systems while ensuring comprehensive information delivery.
3Loss of time
If virtual reality or augmented reality devices are used to present information, then information accessibility in real-time is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the augmented reality functionality into separate components: cameras mounted on or near the glasses to capture images, the glasses themselves to display information, and separate processing systems to manage data retrieval and presentation. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently and simplifies the overall system architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The augmented reality glasses serve multiple functions: capturing images with integrated cameras, displaying patient information, providing navigation guidance, and potentially recording clinical encounters. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate devices and justifies the investment in the augmented reality system by delivering multiple clinical benefits from a single platform.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for employing virtual environmental augmentation in clinical care environments to enhance a clinician's in-the-moment knowledge, leverage past experiences of the clinician and others, and improve the quality of patient care are provided. Such virtual environmental augmentation may align with prior-established, evidence-based clinical processes and enhance the clinician's in-the-moment knowledge by extracting relevant data from one or more clinical sources and presenting a virtual representation of at least a portion of the extracted data (or a summary, exemplification, or interpretation thereof) in the clinician's field-of-view while the clinician is present in a clinical care environment and is utilizing an environmental augmentation device. Such environmental augmentation additionally may facilitate real-time documentation enabling more complete clinical records and ultimately improving the quality of patient care.