Google Glass is yet to make its official debut, but consumers from different sections of the society are eagerly becoming Glass Explorers. When recently for a single day, Glass went on sale the entire stock was finished at the end of the day. The healthcare industry is one of the sectors where Google Glass has made quite an impact. There are many ways in which Glass can affect the future of medicine.
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Three of the ways in which Google Glass can impact medicine’s future, have been described here.
- Augmented Reality in Surgical Processes
Augmented reality medical apps for tablets and smartphones have been released in recent years, which have become quite popular. Apple’s iPad was used by doctors last August as an AR viewfinder to perform a liver surgery. A main problem faced during the surgery was that an assistant had to hold the iPad during the entire surgery.
Now if voice controlled hands-free Google Glass is used, this problem can be easily solved. If all the surgeons start using this wearable device, the number of mistakes during a surgery can be reduced significantly with Google Glass apps.
- Programmed Personal Healthcare
The healthcare applications of Google Glass are not only restricted to hospitals, they can be used in homes as well for medical purposes. Patient can be reminded to exercise, take medications timely or track their behavior through the entire day to check if they have any dementia signs.
Already there are many Android and iOS apps which carry out such tasks. If the developers can port these apps to Glass, patients will get regular reminders through the HUD. The remote care possibilities of Glass combined with the movement tracking fitness bands create a partially programmed automated system. When this system is combined with smart home technology, it can be even more helpful for medical purpose. They can give daily routine reminder for Alzheimer’s patients, helping them to lead almost a normal life.
- Organizing Electronic Health Records
Electronic health records (EHRs) can be organized by Google Glass. In the past, these records were set up on PCs. Now, they are put up in cloud for accessing from iPads and iPhones.
In the future, such apps can come in Google Glass’ display instead of just being accessed by iPads or iPhones. Apart from getting wireless access to records of patients, they can be used to scan QR codes on drugs, room doors, medical devices, etc. to match them instantly with the correct record of the patients.
Though Glass has many possibilities in the future of medicine, still there are some drawbacks like hospital budgets, privacy concerns, etc. which needs to be overcome. Once these are done, Google Glass can make a positive impact on the health care industry.
