Hybrid work and learning: is mixed reality the next great enabler?

Mixed reality (MR) has real potential to bring a new age of innovation by removing the barriers between real and virtual interactions. The benefits of MR are being felt across industries.

In health, surgeons are using the technology to enhance surgical capabilities that improve patient outcomes. In production it is enabling factory machinery to be remotely audited, repaired, and new parts installed, delivering on sustainability goals by minimizing the carbon cost of travel. And across industries it is enriching the learning experiences of workers and students.

Uses of MR have been limited until now, but in a rapidly changing world where questions around new ways of working and sustainability are top of mind, this technology can be an enabler of significant transformation.

Enhancing outcomes

One of the key benefits of MR is its advanced capability to visualize complex objects. The technology breaks the 2D confines of video or a presentation, enabling a 3D perspective. This has even been extended to human interactions with the recent release of Microsoft Mesh. Here, the real world lives alongside the digital one, allowing users to move around, look inside and fully interact with objects.

One potentially life-altering area MR is being used to fully interact with objects is in healthcare, specifically surgery.

Unlike other industries that can rely on quick access to technology in their daily work, surgeons can’t bring a computer into a sterile operating-room setting. Typically planning procedures in advance, with little access to patient data or other resources once a surgery begins.

Mixed reality gives surgeons a new tool to quickly gain information and communicate with colleagues directly from anywhere. An excellent example of this in practice was our recent 24-hour HoloLens surgery event. Through a number of operations, 15 surgeons, including Ukraine’s Dr Oleksandr Strafun, worked together either as the primary surgeon in the operating room, or as an advisor connected through the HoloLens device.

The surgeon on the ground had access to 3D X-Rays and patient information, which they could examine in real-time. When combined with the virtual presence and advice of the other surgeons, the capabilities, decisions, and confidence of the surgeon undertaking the operation was greatly increased.

Source: Microsoft

All up, mixed reality can significantly enhance traditional surgical procedures at a fraction of the cost of introducing surgical robotics into the operating room. This is enabling a far greater number of surgeons across the world to enhance the outcomes of surgery for their patients.

Delivering on sustainability

In addition to enhancing business outcomes, we’re also seeing mixed realities potential to reduce organizations’ carbon footprint. A key way MR is helping companies achieve this is through reducing the need for business travel while continuing to enable meaningful interactions.

With Europe looking to lead the way on net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, businesses across the region are looking to MR to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining productivity. One great example of this is global personal care brand, L’Oréal.

Through its ‘For the Future’ program, the company is committed to cutting the carbon emissions of its industrial activity. But fixing, auditing, or installing equipment in its factories can’t be done over the phone and often involves transporting specialist skilled workers to its sites.

To reduce the need for this travel, L’Oréal now uses mixed reality to enable on-site staff to action commands made by remote specialists. In real-time, both the on-site staff member and remote specialist can react to the same image, use mixed reality annotations, and share critical information, if necessary, from opposite sides of the world.

In line with its sustainability mission, L’Oréal is benefitting from mixed reality to reduce the emissions that would have been caused by potentially lengthy travel. In addition, L’Oréal’s specialist engineers have also expressed how the investment in mixed reality has improved their quality of life, eliminating the jet lag and fatigue caused by frequent and lengthy travel.

Enriching learning experiences

While very much still in its infancy, we are now also seeing mixed reality in the classroom. Here, MR gives students the opportunity to ‘fail safely’ and learn from the experience. It is harder to break something virtually, enabling students the confidence to engage fully in more practical subjects.

This also gives educators the opportunity to provide more precise and contextual feedback. In more practical learning settings, like nursing, this is particularly beneficial.  Limited clinical practice time affects the opportunity for nursing students of gaining hands-on experience of dealing with patients. This lack of clinical practice, which is vital in preparing students for the real clinical environment, can contribute to nursing procedure errors that compromise the safety of patients.

Source: Microsoft

Through its European Nursing Academy, Romanian healthcare provider, Regina Maria Healthcare Network, is using mixed reality to reduce the gap between theory and practice, giving nursing students digitally enhanced clinical experience. The most impactful aspect of using mixed reality in the program is combining native 3D images with medical data to provide an immersive and collaborative learning environment.

Regina Maria Healthcare Network is enabled to profoundly transform how medical care is taught and how nursing students learn about the human body. In the next five years, 4,500 students will be trained through the European Nursing Academy, providing each candidate with a more holistic understanding of the practical competencies necessary for the job.

An eye to the future

A final thought I’d like to share is around the possibilities of MR in traditionally office-based professions. What’s clear from research such as our recent Work Trend Index is hybrid work is here to stay, with more people wanting greater flexibility in their workday. Alongside this however, we are also starting to see  increased fatigue from video calls. In a more virtual world, finding solutions to ensure employee productivity is not diminished is becoming a key challenge for businesses to overcome.

The capabilities of Mixed Reality could well prove to be an effective bridge here. The immersive nature of the mixed reality environment would enable co-workers to interact with one another in real-time, while physically apart, in a way that feels much truer to life. While a specific solution is still very much in its infancy, it is definitely an interesting area to keep an eye on.

Everyone walking around their home or office with a MR headset on may seem farfetched right now. But what it goes to show, is whether utilized to enhance outcomes, enable sustainability objectives, or enrich learning experiences, we are currently just scratching the surface of the impact of mixed reality technology. Given what we are already seeing it achieve, this reality, truly excites me.