A patient walks into a hospital room, sits down and starts talking to a doctor. Only in this case, the doctor is a hologram.
It may sound like science fiction, but it’s the reality for some patients at Crescent Regional Hospital in Lancaster, Texas.
In May, the hospital group began offering patients the ability to see their doctor remotely as a hologram through a partnership with Holoconnects, a digital technology company based in the Netherlands.
Each Holobox — the company’s name for the 440-pound, 7-foot-tall device that displays a highly realistic, 3D live video of a person on a screen — costs $42,000, with an additional $1,900 annual service fee.
The high-quality image gives the patient the feeling that a doctor is sitting inside the box, when in reality the doctor is miles away looking at the cameras and screens showing the patient.
The system allows the patient and doctor to have a real-time telehealth visit that feels more like an in-person conversation. Currently, the service is mainly used for pre- and post-operative visits.
Crescent Regional officials, who plan to expand the service to traditional appointments, believe it improves the remote experience for the patient.
“Physicians can have a very different impact on the patient,” said Raji Kumar, Crescent Regional’s managing director and chief executive officer. “Patients feel the doctor is there.”
But experts are wary of whether a hologram visit is significantly better than 2-D telehealth options like Zoom or FaceTime.
In medicine, technological advances are judged by their ability to improve access to care, reduce costs or improve its quality, said Dr. Eric Bresman, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I don’t know of any data to support the idea that this would improve the quality of the visit beyond a standard telemedicine visit,” said Dr. Bresman, who has experience in digital medicine.
Ms Kumar said one of the ways a hologram improves the telehealth experience is the large screen and sophisticated camera that allow the doctor to see the patient’s entire body, which is useful for judging features such as gait or range of motion.
The camera could be especially useful in a physical therapy setting, said Dr. Chad Ellimoottil, medical director of virtual care for the University of Michigan Health System.
Some of the benefits of the hologram are less tangible, but they greatly improve the patient experience, said Steve Sterling, the managing director of Holoconnects North America.
“We are not going to affect patient outcomes,” Mr Sterling said. “But what we’re already affecting is a sense of engagement between doctors and patients.”
While Mr. Sterling said Crescent Regional is the first hospital application for the Holobox, hospice services more often use the technology.
Twelve hotels have Holoboxes, and there are plans to install the system in 18 more locations, Mr. Sterling said.
Dr Ellimoottil believes this technology is better suited to a hospitality environment than a medical environment. Telehealth allows patients to see a doctor from home, but patients using the Holobox system would have to travel to an office.
In addition to concerns about the lack of improvement in quality and accessibility of care, price is also an issue.
Currently, $42,000 plus an annual fee of $1,900 is not a cost-saving service. But Ms. Kumar said she is okay with that.
“It’s not about monetization,” he said. “It’s more the quality of the patients, the commitment and providing better service to the patient. Giving them more comfort.”
