Skip to main content
Industry

Patient education is easier with 3D animation and mobile technologies

Patients about to undergo a medical procedure often face pages and pages of documentation that contain medical and legal terms they probably wouldn’t understand on a good day, and which can be even harder to comprehend under the stress of a pending surgery. In addition, if a patient struggles with reading the local language, the situation gets all the more challenging.

In spite of this, doctors need to make sure that their patients understand how a procedure can improve their health as well as the risks and possible side effects. What’s more, in most countries, doctors are required by law to provide evidence that they’ve done so and that the patient has provided informed consent.

The good news is that modern 3D-animation and mobile technologies can make this process easier for patients and doctors alike.

Audiovisual information can help patients understand medical procedures better. The beauty of 3D-animation is that animators can create anything they can picture in their minds. So even the most complex surgery can be broken down into steps the patient can visualize and comprehend.

When we started AniMedical in 2010, we focused on creating 3D-animated videos to help patients understand surgeries. And we made sure the videos could be viewed on a range of mobile devices so they would be convenient for doctors to use in patient consultations. Then, we added in software so doctors can use this tool not only to educate their patients, but also to make it easier for them to document the informed consent of their patients. For example, the AniMedes application includes time stamps and tracks how much of a video a patient has watched. It also enables patients and doctors to digitally capture questions and notes. AniMedes thus can enhance patient safety while contributing to a more secure and modern documentation process for doctors and clinics.

Just how much more is a patient able to understand by watching 3D-animations versus reading medical explanations in pamphlets? We hope to find out. We’re now conducting studies in three hospitals in Austria where they’re using the AniMedes software for patient education and informed consent documentation. One of the main objectives of the studies is to compare the educational effectiveness of audiovisual digital content versus information on paper.

The study results should be ready in April 2015, and we’ll likely share them right here, so keep checking back at the Microsoft Health blog. And in the meantime, feel free to reach out with any comments or questions via email, Facebook or Twitter.