Artiness, a start-up founded in 2018 by Prof. Alberto Redaelli together with a group of professors and researchers from the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria of the Politecnico di Milano and winner of the Vodafone “Action for 5G” bid, has developed an innovative remote proctoring system for surgeons in the operating room, based on 5G network and augmented reality software.

The system supports the surgeon integrating medical images of the patient and 3D holograms viewable through AR headsets and is the subject of a clinical trial that the San Raffaele Hospital is conducting together with Vodafone Italia in order to test its “on field” potential. To this day, five percutaneous mitral valve repair operations have already been performed with the help of the software developed by Artiness.

During the tests conducted at San Raffaele, the proctor is in a room connected via a 5G network to the operating room and, thanks to a connection twenty times faster than wi-fi, it allows the surgeon to collaborate remotely with colleagues or medical device experts. This technology, combining the potential of 5G network, edge computing and augmented reality, allows the proctor to have more information than if he were next to his colleague and will lower the costs of collaborations between surgeons from different hospitals. For patients, the benefit will translate into greater access to specialized healthcare.