The hospital of tomorrow should have nothing to do with the current one – or almost nothing. At the Health House in Leuven, experts offer demonstrations of connected or intelligent objects, new 3D imaging techniques and projects for hospitals of the future.
This is the case, for example, of a dissection table like no other, of which there are only two examples in Belgium. Entirely virtual, it was made from a real person whose body was sectioned into 1 mm slices and whose 3D model was then generated. This allows the scanner image to be viewed and thus, in a way, to navigate through the entire body. An opportunity for medical students to practice surgery.
“It can also be used by surgeons to prepare their operation. They use it a bit like a simulator, they test the operation virtually before carrying it out in reality. The biggest advantage of the virtual clone is that you can reset everything. You don’t depend on real bodies and the costs associated with handling them because here the body is virtual.“, explains Dimitri Vanaeken, project manager at the Health House in Leuven.
Another example: a patient arrives at the hospital. His body will be directly scanned and his skeleton printed in 3D. Enough to be able to adapt perfectly and quickly all types of implants… and that’s not all.Thanks to a 3D magnesium-based implant, stem cells taken from the patient can be cultured on the support. They will then be able to recreate the missing bone. In other words, the body regenerates itself.” explains Dimitri Vanaeken.
