The doctor is in....the box. That’s one way to describe how patients are now encountering their physicians in what’s being described as the future of telehealth. Imagine that instead of a cancer patient in a rural area driving hours for an appointment to see their specialist at an academic health center, they can go to their local clinic and see a life-size, real-time, 3-D projection of them in a seven foot tall light box. The doctor can see the patient through two-way video, and is assisted by a clinician in the exam room.

The technology behind this remarkable scene is provided by a Los Angeles based start-up called Proto Hologram, whose founder and chairman, David Nussbaum, joins us on this episode of Raise the Line from Elsevier. "Our holograms start where Zoom ends and where physically being there begins," says Nussbaum, a TIME Healthcare100 honoree who has spent the last decade developing commercial and educational applications for holograms.

In addition to clinical settings, Proto units are being used at medical schools and senior living facilities and are playing a role in public health campaigns about breast cancer and vaccines. Join host Lindsey Smith for a fascinating conversation that covers:

The role of holograms in extending access to specialty care;
How the technology could be used to combat loneliness among seniors;
Nussbaum's philosophy of "commercializing the impossible".

Mentioned in this episode:

Proto Hologram

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