The concern was was
that we were going
to have mass casualties with
thousands of people dying
and that the hospital
was going to be overrun,
and it was immediately obvious
that we were not protected.
We didn't have enough PPE.
And so there was a lot of
fear that actually we were all
going to get really sick.
And then in the second week
of March, that's exactly what
happened.
We lost a third of
our team in a week.
I sat there at the beginning
of the COVID pandemic
and I counted 29 people
in close proximity
in a single trauma call.
And I was thinking,
well, if this
is how we're going to run the
next few weeks, a lot of people
are going to get sick, and
we have to change this really
dramatically.
The simple concept
was that we're
going to create completely
virtual ward rounds.
Rather than sending
four people, we're
going to send one doctor in.
We got a telephone
call from Microsoft.
They called us up and said,
hey, guys, how can we help?
and do you think the HoloLens
could be of use to you?

We very quickly started
working with the headsets
to identify some use cases.
So when you place the headset
on your head, what the user will
see is a virtual screen
or a mixed-reality screen
which they can position into
any real space in the room
that they're standing in.
On the left screen
at the moment will
be the face of one
of their colleagues
who will be interacting
with that user
through a webcam
based on a desktop.
We can call other
experts that we
might want to call into
that clinical scenario,
and we can also put
up images and content.
So we can look at electronic
health care record
data or X-rays or images.
What it means is that you
have all the information,
all the specialist care that you
need at the patient's bedside
there and then, and
it's all in one headset.
When this crisis hit,
it became apparent
that the NHS had to
work in a different way
and through really
high-level, strategic kind
of digital
infrastructure projects,
Teams was just naturally
adopted by the NHS.
Teams really is now, I would
say, an essential tool.
We could not run our
organisation pretty much
without it.
The fact that their
staff are safe,
their ward rounds
are really efficient,
and that they can
communicate more
effectively with their staff.
COVID-19 will change everything
forever in terms of the way
we work and how we work.
In terms of mixed
reality, HoloLens 2
really is the only
viable product
that we have in the space.
And I can see a point
where these sorts of tools
will be the norm, where you will
go on a ward round, where you
go into a clinic, or you will
go into an environment that
might be high risk, that
might be challenging,
or where you might need specific
capabilities of these sorts
of technologies, and it will be
there, and you'll just use it,
and it won't be a novelty.
What I'm absolutely
convinced of is
that we are just at the
very beginning of a very
long and exciting
journey, and I think
what's been very important
about COVID is actually
it's just given us a real shot
in the arm and a huge step
change in our perception
of these technologies
and what value they might bring.