A new kind of hip replacement technology is being developed and pioneered in part, by a company headquartered in Warsaw. Zimmer Biomet is introducing HipInsight will allow the surgeon to wear a special pair of electronic glasses developed by Microsoft to interact with a projected 3-D image of the patient’s hip area, so the surgery is performed with precision.

“You’re looking at the patient’s body and you’re seeing inside of it before you even cut skin,” said Dr. Nimit Goyal, Chief Science, Technology and Innovation officer for Zimmer Biomet, on Inside Indiana Business.

The HipInsight tech is being developed in conjunction with OptiVu Mixed Reality. Goyal said he believes it will enable doctors to be more accurate, which will in turn, benefit the patient.

It uses CT scans to get images of the inside.

“I think previously surgeons used to be really comfortable with just placing implants and doing procedures by your eye, by your experience,” he said. “It’s been a generational change. I think that new surgeons as they come out are demanding precision with implant placement and in the way we do procedures.”

While the new tech doesn’t do the surgery for the doctors, it lets them use Microsoft HoloLens 2 technology to see a hologram of what the actual hip area looks like on the inside, which allows for better planning and execution of the surgery. In some cases, the technology may be used to control surgical robotics.

Gotal said it looks like science fiction.

“The first time you put it on you feel like you might be in that movie ‘Minority Report’ where you’re interacting with holograms,” he said. “The surgeon’s immediate response is usually, wow, this is incredible.”

The software and hardware have many uses, in addition to surgical planning. Education and hands-free communication are just two of the features discussed on the Zimmer Biomet website.

This breakthrough will likely lead to others, with new techniques being developed for different procedures.