According to Dr. Horng, he believes this was possible because Google Glass allowed him to pull up the patient’s medical history and allergy information without him having to go to a computer to check, thus saving him precious minutes. The patient in question was suffering from a massive brain bleeding and it was discovered that normal blood pressure medication would not have worked due to the patient’s allergy.
It is because of this that Dr. Horng was able to begin treatment immediately and could have potentially saved the patient from permanent disability or even death. “Google Glass enabled me to view this patient’s allergy information and current medication regimen without having to excuse myself to log in to a computer, or even lose eye contact.”
For those wondering, this is not your typical Google Glass that you will be able to purchase from Google. The device itself is a Glass but has been modified by a company called Wearable Intelligence who reformats the software to lock it down for specific uses and context, and in this case, the ability to call up patient information as well as speech recognition technology that can recognize medical terms.
At the moment these devices are being trialed at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dr. Horng is one in five doctors that are currently testing it out.