We’ve written multiple times about new technology employed to aid surgical teams. We wrote about HP printers creating 3D-printed color models to help surgeons. We covered Cambridge Consultants’ augmented-reality (AR) system that allows surgeons to “look inside” a patient’s body as if they were wearing X-ray glasses. We also featured Radboud UMC hospital’s REshape program that creates 3D models of brain tumors to aid surgeons. In this recent development, Palo Alto-based Osso VR is a virtual reality surgical training and assessment platform that brings feature-film-quality VR to improve surgical outcomes.
The Osso VR platform helps surgeons, sales teams, and other trainees with haptic-enhanced, realistic, and immersive interactions to learn new procedures and how to use new medical devices. According to the company, more than 20 top teaching hospitals and eight medical device companies in 20 countries currently use Osso VR.
Osso VR enhances every aspect of the surgical experience, according to the company’s news release. It showsanatomy, surgical tools, and the operating room environment in great detail. The Osso VR creative team combines members from a medical illustration group with former employees from Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Apple. Art Director Jonathan Sabella, is an expert on human and comparative anatomy. Before joining Osso, he worked on several Marvel movies, Vader Immortal, and Alejandro Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning VR film Carne y Arena.
Immersive training has long been an essential part of other industries, such as for commercial pilots. In recent years, VR training tools for surgeons and other healthcare professionals have helped lower the costs and make the results more consistent and efficient.
