i4 Business: UCF’s Dr. Hologram - Holoportation to Better Health Care Education

Before holoportation devices joined the faculty at the University of Central Florida, they were largely used in entertainment and more commonly known by their actual name: the PORTL. PORTL devices have been displayed at Comic-Con, the Saturn Awards of the Academy of Science Fiction, the televised iHeartRadio Music Festival, and the 2020 Emmys on the red carpet.

Then, Bari Hoffman, associate dean of clinical affairs for the UCF College of Health Professions and Sciences, saw it for the first time.

“I immediately thought of how this could be used to engage our students,” she said. “We knew we wanted to make the technology work to meet our needs so we could continue to train contemporary and compassionate health care providers. This is helping us close the gap we were experiencing in trying to expose our students to a wide variety of conditions they might see in the field.”

With the help of a gift from Brooks Rehabilitation, a Jacksonville-based organization providing medical rehabilitation services throughout Florida, the PORTL device was brought on board at UCF starting in the 2021 fall semester.

Hoffman explained why the device is so important to UCF. “We want to create compassionate clinicians who understand patients and their journey and struggles. We are planning to use this to share their lived experiences, not only understanding what the patient is experiencing but what the caregiver faces, and how to address mental health issues that often accompany patients who have undergone trauma or are living with a chronic disease.”

By utilizing holoportation to bring patients to healthcare providers (and vice versa), the PORTL provides a more holistic view of how the patient is treated. Realistic collaborations between patient and provider are often difficult in a classic classroom setting, but Dr. Hologram exposes students to these scenarios. To see the full news article from i4 Business, please click here.