The Top Vendors Using XR in Healthcare in 2024
Created by Case Western Reserve University… HoloAnatomy is an [XR] training solution. The immersive training suite gives students 3D perspectives of every part of the body, allowing them to interact with engaging simulations and virtual cadavers with mixed reality and [XR] headsets. The HoloAnatomy offering comes with access to a comprehensive pre-built asset library of over 8000 resources for building presentations and training sessions. Users can select and label every part of the human anatomy within the platform and leverage multi-user interactive sessions with built-in collaborative tools.
AlensiaXR Secures Series A Funding for HoloAnatomy Platform
The completion of AlensiaXR’s Series A funding round signifies a pivotal advancement in the realm of medical education. Through HoloAnatomy® software, AlensiaXR is not just revolutionizing anatomical studies with its cutting-edge holographic technology but is also setting a new benchmark for educational methodologies worldwide. The platform’s ability to double the speed of learning while improving retention rates offers a glimpse into the future of medical training. Furthermore, the substantial savings on traditional cadaver labs highlight the economic efficiency and sustainability of this innovative approach.
With the backing of Sopris Capital and other notable investors, AlensiaXR is well-positioned to extend its impact, democratizing medical knowledge and making sophisticated learning tools more accessible across the globe. This initiative not only reinforces the crucial role of technology in enhancing educational outcomes but also underscores the potential of virtual platforms in bridging gaps within global medical education.
CWRU spinout AlensiaXR raises $3 million in Series A funding
“The Series A funding will be used to enhance HoloAnatomy capabilities and advance development efforts to include any field that requires a fundamental understanding of human anatomy, such as dentistry, physiology and pathology,” AlensiaXR CEO Mark Day said. “We are actively engaging our growing customer base to guide the evolution of this pioneering learning platform and will seek to expand into additional applications and global markets.”
Those could include opportunities outside of traditional institutions of higher education. “With the rapid growth in the academic market, we’ve started to see interest in government and commercial markets,” Day said. “We see no limit to the upside of the potential of this extraordinary, immersive learning platform."
AlensiaXR announced the completion of its Series A funding round, led by Sopris Capital
The funds will assist in the development of the company’s flagship HoloAnatomy learning platform, developed by Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). AlensiaXR was spun out of CWRU to accelerate the development and deployment of HoloAnatomy to academic institutions around the world. Other investors include Sopris Capital, Healthcare Collaboration Fund, JumpStart Ventures, University Hospitals Ventures and the JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund.
Sheridan first in Canada to invest in pair of innovative nursing education technologies
HoloAnatomy® Learning Platform has been integrated into curriculum of the Practical Nursing diploma and several other programs in Sheridan’s Faculty of Applied Health and Community Studies. HoloAnatomy’s 3D mixed reality software uses holographic imagery to display structures and systems in the body — including difficult-to-see anatomy such as the diaphragm, nervous and circulatory systems — to better support students in challenging courses such as anatomy and physiology. In addition to engaging learners through the ability to move, collaborate and interact with each other, HoloAnatomy provides a more sustainable alternative to the use of cadavers, which are extremely costly to house and preserve.
Are Real Cadavers Better Than Virtual Ones?
Physical cadaver labs are expensive to run. There are biohazards, and it’s costly to create a lab that’s up to modern environmental regulations. There are other compelling reasons not to use physical cadavers, including the fact that it’s difficult to see anatomy like lymph nodes, certain blood vessels, and the pancreas on a physical cadaver. These were the primary motivations for Case Western’s integration of HoloAnatomy into its anatomy program. Students use virtual reality headsets that project 3D models of either the male or female body—according to studies, this has been a relative success.
Case Western Reserve University recognized as 2023 Microsoft Mixed Reality Partner of the Year
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) today announced it has won the 2023 Microsoft Mixed Reality Partner of the Year Award. CWRU and licensing partner AlensiaXR were honored among a global field for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer-solutions based on Microsoft technology.
“From the first moment we saw HoloLens, we knew mixed reality would be a transformational education tool, and we welcome this acknowledgement of the hard work our team put into envisioning, developing and deploying the HoloAnatomy® Software Suite,” said Mark Griswold, professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
XR Training Offers Major Boost to Learner Outcomes
Students in the XR medical labs learned just as well or better than in traditional dissection labs. The university also found that medical students learned twice as fast, allowing them to have extra time to incorporate different modalities, such as living anatomy and radiology. “That’s how we prepare our future doctors.”
Cribbs in the CLE: Discovering the Wonders of the HoloAnatomy Learning Platform
Former NFL player Josh Cribbs and his hilarious wife share the wonders of the HoloAnatomy® learning platform on their show, "Cribbs in the CLE!"
HoloAnatomy experience starts around 4:12.
Cleveland's Saint Joseph Academy is the nation's first high school to use HoloAnatomy software
Saint Joseph Academy is the first high school in the nation to utilize the HoloAnatomy Software suite. Anatomy lessons have taken on a new dimension. “We want to give them the best tools available,” said Saint Joseph Academy President Katheyn Purcell.
“It definitely makes it a lot easier to understand [anatomy] — and it's more fun as well,” said junior Elizabeth Krotine. “You get to interact with your classmates and discuss what you're seeing.”
CWRU creates company to market its HoloAnatomy software that teaches cadaver-free anatomy
Students learning anatomy by looking at a hologram sounds like something from a university in the far future. But that’s how it’s done right now at Case Western Reserve University.
When CWRU developed the 3D HoloAnatomy® Software Suite of medical education software several years ago to teach anatomy without the use of cadavers, it soon learned there was an appetite for this technological advancement at universities around the world. But universities are not as nimble as business startups. So CWRU created the company AlensiaXR to market its HoloAnatomy software. “(Universities) are built to teach and learn,” said AlensiaXR CEO Mark Day. “You need a private sector organization to be able to (advance a new technology) as a business.”
In the future, AlensiaXR plans to expand the HoloAnatomy software to other medical academic subjects, such as physiology.
Why Cleveland Owns the Future of Virtual Reality
Using HoloLens, CWRU’s Interactive Commons developed HoloAnatomy Software Suite… And results were promising. In a study published in Medical Science Educator in November 2019, students were shown to grasp concepts twice as fast using HoloAnatomy as they would with 2D models.
“We took one of the oldest classes that you can imagine, human anatomy, and in a period of about five years, we went from hundreds of years of history to teaching in this new way,” Griswold says.
In the time since, 17 schools, including one as far as Poland as well as the United Kingdom’s esteemed Oxford University, have adopted curriculums featuring the HoloAnatomy Software Suite.
“We’ve been given this opportunity to lead the world in this area. As a region, we can adopt this as our future,” Griswold says. “We should be amazingly proud as a city.”
Ohio High School Uses Cutting-Edge VR for Anatomy Lessons
Nancy Farrow, senior VP of marketing for AlensiaXR, a company formed to market and sell CWRU’s invention, explained that the HoloAnatomy platform can visualize complex anatomical structures and systems, allowing students to freely move in and out of holograms for more collaborative anatomy lessons.
“You simply put on a HoloLens headset, and a human body appears in three dimensions — the anchored hologram is like magic, empowering students and teachers to literally immerse themselves in the body’s systems through mixed-reality technology,” she wrote. “It’s a new realm of dynamic, collaborative education that helps students learn faster and retain more vital information. What’s remarkable is that you can all be in the same room, making eye contact as you explore the 3D body together, or engage virtually from anywhere in the world.”
Farrow said HoloAnatomy’s software has been on the market for three years and is now in use at more than 20 institutions worldwide, including Northwestern University and University of Oxford, among others. She said the company also recently released the HoloAnatomy Neuro Software Suite, an interactive 3D tool that uses mixed reality to visualize the brain and neural activity.
“AlensiaXR plans to enhance the HoloAnatomy Software Suite with additional anatomical content and develop new applications based on customer recommendations and our partners at Case Western Reserve University,” she wrote. “The response thus far has been remarkable, as academic institutions realize they can teach human anatomy without cadavers with our innovative mixed reality software.”
CWRU launches startup to scale HoloAnatomy learning platform
After years of developing and improving upon a new way to teach human anatomy with holographic imagery, Case Western Reserve University has announced the launch of a startup, AlensiaXR Inc., to scale its product learning platform, the HoloAnatomy Software Suite. HoloAnatomy, which uses mixed-reality technology to illuminate the human body in three dimensions through HoloLens, was developed by programmers and 3D artists at the Interactive Commons, along with CWRU anatomy faculty. More than 370 CWRU medical students already are using the technology.
The HoloAnatomy Software Suite also is licensed to a growing network of institutions, with more than 18 organizations using the platform to attract students, interest donors, save budgets and provide a more intuitive, engaging, effective educational experience.
New company from CWRU helps medical students learn anatomy through holographic imagery
One new startup, called AlensiaXR, was recently developed out of Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine. The university developed pioneering HoloAnatomy software that helps teach students about human anatomy, without the cadavers, by using holographic imagery. AlensiaXR aims to bring this mixed reality learning technique to students around the world.
NBC Nightly News: CWRU HoloAnatomy
Virtual learning is democratizing what has been an elite understanding of the human body.
The Unreal, Bleeding-Edge Tech That’s Helping Doctors Make the Cut
“By making medical education more interactive and engaging, the medical field could become more accessible and attractive to those who previously might have been put off by traditional medical learning.”
Medical Students Are Using Microsoft’s HoloLens to Replace Cadavers in Anatomy Classes
“My intention is to really take this to any class. This is a way online learning or remote learning should really happen. We want them interacting.”
—Case Western Reserve University CIO Sue Workman
How Virtual Anatomy Will Change Med School
Put on the HoloLens visor… and you’ll find yourself staring at a life-size, 3D human figure, with every vein and artery in perfect bodily placement and scale. You can walk around this anatomically correct scaffold, spying organs and tissues from any angle, and poke your head in to see the interior of, say, a heart. Within, you’ll see that organ’s distinct chambers—and within those, the discrete valves.
What is most striking is that this body seems to take up real physical space. Everyone who dons the goggles sees the same images, making medical instruction easier—and the fact that you experience the real world along with the virtual one makes conversation and consultation easier, too.
The idea is to teach students anatomy in a way that they absorb the knowledge more readily, more intuitively—and more quickly. Seeing and “touching” intertwined veins and arteries as they navigate through the human form gives you an understanding of circulation that is difficult (or maybe impossible) to get by studying even the most finely etched schematic in a textbook.
Scientists Are Turning Your Body into Holograms
In 2014 radiology professor Mark Griswold was looking for a new way to teach anatomy. Running a cadaver lab can be expensive, and corpses offer surprisingly limited views into the body. In the midst of his search, he was invited to Microsoft’s top secret testing facility. He expected to be shown a virtual reality headset, a potentially useful tool for teaching. Instead, technicians outfitted him with something even more groundbreaking: a mixed reality headset, called HoloLens, the first self-contained computer that allows users to see holograms amid their surroundings.
The experience was so overwhelming that he had to sit down: “I immediately knew my world had changed that day.” The headset, he realized, would be invaluable in the classroom.
Griswold and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic set out to design a program for HoloLens that would revolutionize anatomy lessons. Last year they released HoloAnatomy, a demonstration application that transforms images into 3-D models of the human body’s bones and organs and enables students to explore their shape and movement from every angle.
Virtual reality immerses users into an alternate world, removed from their surroundings. HoloLens is different: “Physical and holographic objects coexist and interact in real time,” says Microsoft’s Lorraine Bardeen. In classrooms this means students can communicate with teachers, peers, and a holographic display during a lesson.
“I don’t see a class on campus that won’t be affected by the technology,” says Griswold.