Juxtopia, a Baltimore-based biomedical and information technology company focused on improving human performance mainly in the areas of learning and health, has teamed with Johns Hopkins Hospital to create a surgical navigation system based on Juxtopia's innovative goggle technology.
"When a surgeon like Ben Carson is working on a brain, they often have to look up at monitors displaying the CAT scans and monitors that track how the patient is doing. There is an occupational hazard though with these long surgeries that require physician's to repeatedly look up and then try to map a screen that he sees at a distance to make precise cuts iwith a scalpel n the brain of the patient. With a lot of practice you can get good at, but still mistakes can be made," explains Jayfus Doswell, Juxtopia's CEO.
"It's not the easiest thing to do. It's almost like driving a car in reverse when you don't have rear view mirrors. You can look behind you and hope you don't hit anything, but why not just get a rearview mirror," he continues.
Funded by a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant, the collaboration will assist in the development of a Wearable Intelligent Navigation System for Surgery (WINSS).
The WINSS software will be developed as a Wearable Augmented Reality-based Surgical Navigation System for distribution through the Juxtopia Wearable Augmented Reality Goggles.
The WINSS technology would display all the information a surgeon needs on the lenses of the goggles.The voice activated/deactivated goggles, will enable surgeons to navigate various medical images that assist surgical procedures while keeping their hands and eyes focused on the patient.
"Everything runs through our headset so we'll create the alogrithms and software, and make the interface," says Doswell.
The project is slated to begin in September.
Source: Jayfus Doswell, Juxtopia
Writer: Walaika Haskins