Healthcare Technology Featured Article

August 05, 2013

Google Glass Provides Glance of Future Uses in New England Hospitals


Some 8,000 Google Glass devices – a wearable, hands-free computer – were distributed for a variety of tests.

Until the device goes on the market next year, these may be some of the only recipients to use Google Glass.

One of the healthcare facilities approved for getting the device was Connecticut’s Hartford Hospital. Another facility to get the device was the nearby Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Already, Dr. Rafael Grossman, a surgeon in Bangor, Maine, who works at Eastern Maine Medical Center, wore Google Glass while he placed a feeding tube in a patient.

"By performing and documenting this event, I wanted to show that this device and its platform are certainly intuitive tools that have a great potential in healthcare," Grossman said on a blog post quoted by HealthTechZone. “And specifically for surgery, could allow better intra-operative consultations, surgical mentoring and potentiate remote medical education, in a very simple way.”

It was reported that Hartford Hospital and Yale-New Haven limited the device’s use so far to simulation, so practitioners can test it out on mannequins.

For instance, Hartford Hospital’s Dr. Thomas Nowicki, who is both an emergency room physician and the hospital’s cognitive simulation director, told The Hartford Courant newspaper, "Having access to this environment is really advantageous because we can test it here without having to go through all of the steps to get it in place in a patient care environment.”

Hartford Hospital wants to see if the device can improve communication in the emergency department. For instance, in the future doctors in the emergency room would each wear Google Glass, and medical alerts would be sent visually to a specific doctor about a patient needing special attention.

"When the medical alert comes in, the recipient taps the side of the device to accept the call," Chris Madison, a simulation technician for Hartford Hospital, told The Courant. "If he doesn't, the alert moves onto the next physician after a certain amount of time."

At Yale-New Haven, a team leader involved in a simulation with a mannequin wore the device to record the procedure. David Dias, a simulation technician at Yale-New Haven, said Google Glass allows improved communication among healthcare providers.

"Having the clinicians hear what they're talking about over a patient – good things, bad things – and the patient hearing what they're talking about, it might have them adjust where they would have those conversations," Dias added.

At Hartford Hospital, Nowicki and Madison simulated patient data, which are sent to physicians’ field of vision, The Courant said. This eliminates the need for a doctor to check a computer for data or have a nurse read data out loud.

Several hospitals said the issue of patient privacy still needs to be resolved before there is widespread use of Google Glass.

In the meantime, New England hospitals are among those checking to see how Google Glass can improve healthcare.




Edited by Alisen Downey
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