Google Glass creates better doctors?

Is one of the ripest markets for Google Glass and Glass-based apps healthcare? While technology is merging with our surroundings, becoming more intelligent and will even merge with our human flesh doctors needs to find a way to deal with all this information. Of course algorithms will assist doctors but how will they get the right information on the right time in the most easy circumstances? In other words receive the data while remaining hands-on with patients.

Wearables could be a part of the solution in the OR to improve clinical outcomes? This could make sense although there’s little empirical evidence for or against wearables. But recently a new study is conducted which could give some answers on the effect of wearables in healthcare.

This recent study was conducted by Stanford Medical School and VitalMedicals. This company makes the real-time vitals app (VitalStream) that runs on the Google Glass wearables during surgeries. In the survey and test, a group of 20 Stanford residents performed two types of surgeries. These surgeries were on dummies of course. Of the surgeries there was one with the help of Google Glass and one without. The outcome of the study was clear. The performance of the doctors was markedly better while using Glass.

Of course this was just a very limited study and let’s be honest the assignment of the study was done by a company which is actively involved in creating services for smart glasses in healthcare. But it seems obvious that smart glasses in some professions help the worker to get his/her job better done. Healthcare is an example of such a profession because it is done in a high pressure environment, with lots of important data and you need your hands to do other work. 

So the future of your contact with a doctor is via smart glasses?