The recent expansion of broadband capabilities has opened up new possibilities for powerful VR training platforms, at scale. Dr Karim Qayumi, CEO of CyberPatient, says his new interactive virtual-patient technology wasn’t practical in the cyber-environment of 15 years ago, when his son built the first prototype.
Read Dr Qayumi’s comments on innovation in computer-based learning.
“The technology Qayumi is unveiling has been many years in the making. In 2002, the first iteration of CyberPatient that he and UBC patented was a bit before its time and limited to abdominal problems whereas the latest version has about 120 diverse cases. In the first prototype, built by Qayumi’s son, Tarique when he was a UBC student, bandwidth was inadequate and internet speed was too slow, Qayumi says, “so we waited 15 years for the technology to catch up with the idea.”
Qayumi, a UBC surgery professor and now-retired cardiovascular surgeon, says the online medical training tool could revolutionize medical learning, patient care quality and safety assessments. “It’s all about making safer environments for patients but it also has the ability to reduce the costs of health care,” he said.”
It might cause some (more) unemployment among medical actors, but we really should be grateful for the underlying heavy-duty infrastructure that makes cool projects like this possible. You wonder what other brilliant health-care software might be out there - perhaps already built, but just awaiting another surge in broadband capacity.