Advancing Healthcare Through Mixed Reality: The Lynx-R1 Initiative at Hôpital Bichat and Inserm, Paris

Five years ago: “Come see what we do in the operating room, okay? That way, you'll see how we work and you’ll tell me exactly how you see the future of your headset in healthcare”—Professor Patrick Nataf.

This is how our collaboration with Prof. Patrick Nataf, head of cardiac surgery and transplantation from Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, started back in 2019. Prof. Nataf met our CEO Stan Larroque and immediately saw the potential of mixed reality for remote expertise in healthcare.

It took us numerous visits to the operating room and many discussions to discover how we could help surgeons in their practice with the Lynx-R1. Building from the ground up, we found three main use cases: mixed reality for education, surgical training and remote expertise in cardiac surgery.

The Lynx-R1 enables medical students to have a three-dimensional model of the heart to study its different components, including the various vessels and arteries. This allows spatial understanding of the heart’s anatomy, which is difficult via textbooks or pictures. 

Our headset also helps medical students refine specialized skills without requiring dedicated time slots from a specialist. Thanks to a virtual twin, mixed reality may boost students' efficiency by continually training their gestures before applying them to a real-life scenario with a patient.

In the words of Prof. Nataf: "One can repeat an action a thousand times that is very difficult to perform. Well, if you repeat it ten thousand times, it becomes easy. I don't want a young person to make the mistake ten thousand times, so it's better for them to practice ten thousand times correctly on digital models that will first imprint on their brain the gesture to learn. The more they practice, the better it will be for them. And when they have practiced enough, and especially if we see that they have self-confidence, it will be easier to entrust them with a real patient."

Remote expertise for cardiac surgery is another use case we have worked on at Lynx Mixed Reality. Our headset enables an experienced cardiac surgeon to guide operations remotely in areas that would be difficult to access. In parallel, we are working with the Inserm, a public research institution focused on human health and medical research in France, to begin applied experimental research with the Lynx-R1. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what mixed reality will bring to healthcare.

Are you interested in exploring innovative healthcare use cases with us? We'd love to brainstorm solutions tailored just for you. Drop us a line at contact@lynx-r.com, and let's drive healthcare innovation to the forefront.