A Boston hospital has taken up Google Glass as their latest medical tool to help doctors instantly call up information on emergency room patients. The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been prototyping and using the Glass application over the past three months, but this month they plan on making it available to all doctors that are interested.
Beth Israel already had an established Emergency Department Dashboard to keep track of their emergency room patients, but integration with Glass means that surgeons and other emergency room technicians can have the information as soon as possible, without having to interact with desktop computers or other consoles. In order to keep this information secure all the components on Glass that send data to the Google servers have been disabled, and the data stays within the medical center’s private firewall protected network. Google Glass was also modified by the team to include an external battery pack, more powerful wireless transmission, improved QR code reading and even a digital pairing with clinical iPhones.
According to Dr. John Halamka, CIO of the Beth Israel hospital, clinicians wearing the device simply look at a QR code on the emergency room wall, which is instantly scanned by the video camera embedded in Google Glass. Glass then syncs up with the Emergency Department Dashboard to identify which patient has been assigned to that room, instantly transmitting all known and relevant information to the clinician as possible. They may then speak with, examine, and perform procedures on the patient with the additional input provided by Google Glass including vital signs, lab results, and more.
“Google Glass does not appear to be a replacement for a desktop or iPad – it is a new medium best suited for retrieval of limited or summarized information,” says Halamka, noting that information has to be condensed to fit the doctors’ field of vision. Doctors can scroll through the data by tapping and swiping on the device or even through voice commands and head movements, but the hands-free operation and immediate data retrieval make the system unique. According to Halamka, "Real-time updates and notifications is where Google Glass really differentiates itself. Paired with location services, the device can truly deliver actionable information to clinicians in real time."
The device is already saving lives, with one doctor even recounting an experience where a patient with a massive head injury was unable to remember which blood pressure medications he was severely allergic to. "Google glass enabled me to view this patient’s allergy information and current medication regimen without having to excuse myself to login to a computer, or even lose eye contact,” said the clinician, Dr. Steve Horng. “It turned out he was also on blood thinners that needed to be [urgently] reversed. By having this information readily available at the bedside, we were able to quickly start both antihypertensive therapy and reversal medications for his blood thinners, treatments that if delayed could lead to permanent disability and even death.”
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
