Seoul National University Bundang Hospital said Monday that it has opened a mixed reality lab at its Healthcare Innovation Park.

Seoul National University Bundang Hospital Vice President Baek Rong-min (center) and doctors from various departments cut a ribbon to dedicate the mixed reality lab at the hospital’s Healthcare Innovation Park in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Monday.

Mixed reality is the next-generation information processing technology that combines the advantages of virtual reality (VR) technology, which uses a computer-implemented virtual image, and augmented reality (AR) technology, which superimposes a 3D virtual image on the real world.

In recent years, the healthcare sector has diversified such technologies to overcome the limited infrastructure and lack of medical personnel, while providing a more advanced and efficient healthcare service.

Medical AR and VR technology is already regularly used in various medical fields such as surgery, rehabilitation training, medical practitioner training, and psychotherapy. Also, such technologies have promising outcome to expand in the future in areas such as supporting minimum invasive surgery and developing low- cost, high-efficiency medical education program.

SNUBH is a leader in a variety of studies that combine virtual reality. Recently, researchers at the hospital’s department of anesthesiology and pain helped to reduce the operation-related anxiety level of pediatric patients by 40 percent by merging VR with animations to portray an operating room.

“One of the topics of current healthcare research and industry is utilizing VR and AR techniques in actual medical process and environment,” SNUBH President and CEO Jheon Sang-hoon said. “Following such trends, the mixed reality lab will call for institutional interest in the expansion and development of medical AR and VR fields, while acting as a base for collaboration with various industries.”

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