Augmedix recently raised a hefty $3.2 million in venture capital funding on the strength of one big idea: give doctors a way to put Google Glass to use in seeing patients. It may sound crazy, but Augmedix has a pretty good plan behind this wild idea, and it may well come to pass that, before too much longer, when it comes time to hear “the doctor will see you now,” said doctor will be “seeing you” through Google Glass.
The fundraising effort was led by DCM and Emergence Capital Partners, and Augmedix—a company founded in 2012 by Stanford University students—plans to put the cash to use hiring more people and expanding the overall lineup of services that Augmedix can offer. Emergence Capital Partners general partner Kevin Spain offered up a bit of explanation as to why the company backed Augmedix, saying “We've taken a look at just about every Google Glass start-up concept, and we've yet to see an opportunity as compelling as Augmedix.”
Perhaps the biggest such service it offers—and the one that likely garnered the most interest from investors—is that Augmedix can not only record information during a patient's visit, but that information can then be stored and recovered later via voice command. Augmedix CEO Ian Shakil described the experience as “kind of like Siri or OnStar,” in that it can quickly bring up information when said information is requested, and route the output to the doctor's Google Glass system.
Naturally, a key concern with a system like this would be the impact of the various healthcare privacy laws involved, and Shakil—along with Pelu Tran, the company's chief product officer—notes that Augmedix does comply with currently available laws on the matter, and Shakil went on to note that not only is the product compliant with applicable laws, it's also a revenue generator, and early testing with undisclosed healthcare systems is currently going well for all involved.
Google Glass is proving to be an increasingly useful piece of technology across several industries, and healthcare is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new technology. That's evident in the increasing number of applications coming out, including some that might well end up being Augmedix's competitors down the line. Applications like Austin's Pristine app which allows for live video and audio streaming of patients starting at Glass, that could in turn be sent to a variety of different computers that were approved for such purposes. Another app showed a Stanford University surgeon actually projecting step-by-step instructions of how to perform certain procedures directly over the skin of a model, operating almost as a how-to guide for performing surgeries.
Google Glass has been providing plenty of exciting new opportunities, and well beyond healthcare as well. Everything from tourism to navigation to a variety of job fields has been impacted by this new technology, and it's not even widely available yet. There are even competitors to Google Glass itself waiting in the wings, lending another note of credence to the growth of this new technology. With lawmakers already examining the technology to consider its impact on public safety concerns, and new start-ups gaining ground in the market, it's clear that Google Glass isn't likely—nor are its competitors—to be simply brushed aside as a passing technological fad. This could be one of the biggest new tech impacts in some time, and society will likely prove altered fundamentally for its arrival.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
