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have to walk over to the wall to look at it," he says.
What's it like wearing them? When the device with the built-in cam-
era and microphone flips on, it takes up a small quadrant of your
vision. If your field of vision were a tic-tac-toe board, Google Glass
would occupy the upper-right square.
Having gotten a taste of Google Glass in the OR, Dr. Szotek envi-
sions wearable technology playing an expanded role in surgery, with
surgical team members wearing Google Glass and having access to
the patient's EMR and MRI once they've scanned the bar code on the
patient's bracelet. "Then transport comes out, and all the data pops up
right in front of their face," he says. That's not all. With a simple voice
command, you could call up the pre-op checklist and patient lab data.
Anesthesia could track real-time vitals. You'd get a reminder when it's
time to redose antibiotics. You'd say "take a picture" to take a picture
and "take a video" to take video.
"We're talking seamless integration from the initial encounter with
the patient all the way through the operating room," says Dr. Szotek.
Dr. Szotek was selected to try out a Google Glass prototype ($1,500
plus tax). It's believed that about a dozen other surgeries have been
performed using Google Glass. Google aims to launch Google Glass
(
google.com/glass/start
) later this year. It's expected to cost $500 to
$600 during the initial launch.
— Dan O'Connor
Great ideas for your OR
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