Hospital design for the future

The Holodeck looks like any other treatment room, except for one thing: it’s not real. It’s a holographic simulation – and a radical new approach to how we design health care spaces.

Located at Coquitlam’s Finger Food Studios, the Holodeck is actually an empty warehouse space. There, participants put on a virtual reality headset called a HoloLens. This self-contained holographic computer is programmed with full-scale, mixed-reality models that participants can interact with in real time.

“Finger Food is using HoloLens to map out our space and our equipment,” says Amanda Harvey, Providence’s Program Director, Acute & Access Services. “It’s allowing us to see first-hand where things work, and as importantly, where they don’t work . . . It’s an absolute game changer for clinical space design.”

Given Providence’s leadership role in Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, the collaboration between Finger Food, Providence, and St. Paul’s Foundation is an example of how innovative industry partnerships can radically change and improve how we do things.