THE HYPER-HOSPITAL - A NETWORKED REALITY BASED MEDICAL-CARE SYSTEM

In the modern hospital, the physical or chemical therapeutic procedure is regarded as paramount and psychological or spiritual care is quite frequently put aside. The goal of the ''Hyper Hospital'' is to correc t this. The Hyper Hospital is constructed in the computer based electr onic network using an alternate reality system, such as the virtual re ality system, as the human-machine-human interface. The nodes of the H yper Hospital belong to a patient and also to a variety of medical car e facilities; for example, the out patient office, the nursing care ce nter, the medical examination unit, the operating theater, etc. The Hy per Hospital space consists of various kind of spaces including the al ternate reality space owned and exclusively controlled by the patient himself or herself, and even the real space as well. Most of the physi cal contact, such as the visit to the out patient office by the patien t, is actualized by the electronic connection of the patient private s pace and the public space of the hospital system. Prescription drugs, special care, and even the admission to the ward will be integrated in to the distributed electronic network. To realize such a system, we ne ed to solve many problems, such as the research on the network oriente d architecture of the alternate reality, the development of human-mach ine interface particularly fitted to various disabilities, the study o f the behavior of normal and diseased people, etc. The concept of the Hyper Hospital we are proposing is believed to be a new paradigm of th e next generation of medical care.