FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PROFESSIONAL OPINION:

John D. Fisher, MD, FACC, FESC, Director, Arrhythmia Services, Professor of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, on the Advantages of Using HoloTouch™ in the Medical Workplace

The limitations of present technology are very apparent in operating rooms and cardiac catheterization and electro-physiology laboratories. These are the places in hospitals where angioplasties, pacemaker implantations, and procedures for abnormal heart rhythms are performed. The advantages HoloTouch™ offers the medical profession are immediately apparent. For example, the physician completing an angiogram and/or conducting angioplasty must be able to quickly see the visual record of the patient's condition at various times since the beginning of the procedure. The physician must speak into a microphone in the operating room (or lab) to communicate with a technician outside the sterile/radiation area in order to view images of previous steps in the procedure on a monitor poised on a shelf or gantry over the operating table. This separates the physician and other healthcare workers in the operating room from direct control of this vital equipment and information because a computer keyboard cannot be effectively sterilized. Under the existing system, the physician does not have the direct control of the equipment needed for most effective management. Instructions are also subject to delay and possible misinterpretation by the outside technician. HoloTouch would allow healthcare workers to directly control essential electronic or mechanical equipment in our healthcare facilities because interacting with its holographic images of control surfaces floating in the air at a convenient location requires touching nothing, and neatly solves both control and hygiene problems.

Dr. Fisher's views are his own and do not represent the official views of either Montefiore Medical Center or the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.