Written by Carle Illinois College of Medicine Marketing/Communications
Urbana, Illinois -- Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been selected as the first medical school in the world to integrate a powerful new augmented reality-based hologram system in its education, innovation, and clinical programs. Through a new partnership between Carle Illinois College of Medicine and MediView XR, Inc., students, faculty, and researchers will have access to the cutting-edge imaging technology for training the next generation of physician-innovators and for medical trials.
“As a global leader in mixed reality simulations and education, Carle Illinois College of Medicine is uniquely positioned for this partnership with MediView,” said Mark Cohen, MD, Dean of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. “In this partnership, CI MED will bring its expertise in mixed reality innovation to work with MediView on a variety of collaborative projects ranging from developing new clinical uses for its XR90 system to developing new educational simulations with the system to train students, residents, and practicing physicians.”
The partnership breaks new ground for both MediView and for CI MED. “Carle Illinois, its students, faculty, and clinicians will have the opportunity to be first integrators, first innovators, and some of the first in the world to put these technologies to clinical use,” said MediView Co-founder and Chairman Adam Rakestraw.
The MediView XR90 platform – the first FDA-cleared product that brings mixed reality navigation to the procedural suite for clinical use – overcomes the limitations of two-dimensional imaging technologies, with an unprecedented 3D-view inside the human body. Live ultrasound images are fused with the system’s 3D holographic display to guide surgeons as they perform minimally invasive procedures, such as biopsies and tumor ablations. The real-time holographic images allow clinicians to visualize a patient's internal anatomy in 3D underneath the skin, including bone, tissue, organs, and vasculature. The unique ‘x-ray vision’ technology has received clearance from the Food & Drug Administration for adjunctive (supplemental) use in minimally invasive ultrasound- and CT-guided needle-based procedures for soft tissue and bone and pre-surgery planning.
“While other institutions (Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, New York Presbyterian/Cornell) are clinical partners evaluating new clinical uses for the XR90 navigation system, CI MED’s unique partnership will also involve working with MediView to expand training and educational use cases with image-guided procedural navigation at CI MED’s Urbana Jump-Simulation Center and in the clinic,” Cohen said. He says the college will leverage its expertise in innovation to co-develop novel clinical use cases to provide advanced precision placement of needles, wire, catheters, probes, or other devices in the future.
In partnership with collaborators from the Grainger College of Engineering and health systems in Central Illinois, CI MED will work with MediView researchers and engineers to improve the accuracy and user experience of the XR90 system as well as help expand the types of imaging modalities that can be processed with the system, including CT and MRI. “With our partner, Carle Health, having one of the few 7-Tesla MRIs in the country, this allows for much higher-resolution anatomic images to be acquired which can then lead to more accurate navigational imaging for the XR90 system to use in the future. This will advance procedural accuracy and provide more clinical opportunities for patients in our community and around the country in the future.” Cohen said.
MediView’s augmented reality technology is also intended to advance the democratization of both health care delivery and health care education, by allowing clinicians and educators across the globe to collaborate in real time. “From a healthcare delivery standpoint, a clinical care provider in a remote or underserved location (whether across town or across the globe) can connect with experienced providers to collaborate to deliver higher levels of care,” Rakestraw said. “From an educational perspective, a clinician or professor wearing the headset can call in multiple participants to the shared experience through their mobile phone, tablet, or PC for a video call with integrated medical imaging.”
Cohen says the partnership opens new opportunities for more learners (medical students, nursing students, and other health care professionals such as residents, advanced practice providers, and physicians) to train on this advanced technology, as a way to gain new skills and build a more-skilled health care workforce, especially to help in rural and underserved areas, and to improve procedural precision and ultimately patient care.
Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is the world’s first engineering-based medical school, emphasizing innovation and advanced medical technologies in its unique curriculum.
MediView is an Ohio-based medtech company refining and expanding technologies originally developed at the Cleveland Clinic. These technologies combine the power of augmented reality, remote collaboration, and evidence-based insights. The first worldwide clinical case using the MediView XR 90 system – a mediastinal lymph node biopsy – was successfully performed recently by Bradley B. Pua, MD, Chief of the Division of Interventional Radiology at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, and an associate professor of radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
For more information, please contact Ryann Monahan, Director of Marketing & Communications, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, at 217.300.6658 or ryann@illinois.edu.