Virtual Medicine Center launched at Geneva University Hospital (HUG)

How to profit from the recent technological revolution in virtual reality (VR) technology and how to translate them into effective patient care? Being one of the first such Centers worldwide, Virtual Medicine Center is established as a close collaboration between HUG and the Swiss Federal institute of Technology (EPFL) with several key objectives: to foster the development of new VR-based diagnosis and therapy solutions for acute care in the hospital as well as for outpatient care. Establish intensive collaborations between researchers and physicians at HUG and with engineers at EPFL (LNCO, IIG) and Campus Biotech. Develop novel VR teaching tools for medical students in Geneva. Facilitate industry interactions in the rapidly evolving field of digital and neurotechnologies. Oliver Kannape, who has been working at EPFL and at FCBG as well as Mindmaze, is the founding director of HUG’s Center for Virtual Medicine.

The Virtual Medicine Center is built on a longstanding research collaboration between the Blanke Lab at EPFL and the Department of Neurosurgery (Professor Karl Schaller) at HUG. Beyond these two groups the Virtual Medicine Center is supported by the Departments of Clinical Neurosciences, Internal Medicine, and Diagnostics and by Mindmaze SA, a major neurotech company and EPFL startup from the Lemanic region.