healthcare technology

ProTransport-1, a Northern California based medical transport provider has announced a software partnership with CrowdOptic, maker of mobile and wearable broadcasting solutions to deploy the CrowdOptic Google Glass broadcasting solution in its ambulances and mobile medicine units.

Hands-free devices like Google Glass can be really transformative when the hands they free are those of a surgeon. And leading hospitals, including Stanford and the University of California at San Francisco, are beginning to use Glass in the operating room.

In October, UCSF’s Pierre Theodore, a cardiothoracic surgeon, became the first doctor in the United States to obtain Institutional Review Board approval to use the device to assist him during surgery. Theodore pre-loads onto Glass the scans of images of the patient taken just before surgery and consults them during the operation.

“To be able to have those X-rays directly in your field without having to leave the operating room or to log on to another system elsewhere, or to turn yourself away from the patient in order to divert your attention, is very helpful in terms of maintaining your attention where it should be, which is on the patient 100 percent of the time,” said Theodore.

A Stanford-affiliated startup calledVitalMedicals is developing a system that would automate doctors’ access to patient images and medical records using Glass by syncing them automatically via Wi-Fi. VitalMedicals’ debut app, VitalStream, sends live vital signs and alarms to the operating surgeon’s Glass device during conscious sedation. It gets the vital signs from its integration with the ViSi mobile vital sign monitor

VitalMedicals is working on a second app, SurgStream, which displays the pre-surgical images and streams live fluoroscopy,  ultrasound  and  endoscopy video to Glass or a tablet.

The projects, which emerged from Google’s early outreach to developers to create apps for Glass, are still in their earliest stages and still have time to iron out the bugs. And with many doctors interested in applications for the wearable interface, Glass is likely to spread quickly when they do.

more at original : http://singularityhub.com/2013/12/01/google-glass-makes-its-way-into-operating-rooms/

With his Google Glass, Stanford University physician Dr. Homero Rivas pinpoints a target on the skin of an anatomical human model.

The surgeon and his assistant then direct their Glass at the target to reveal an augmented reality display on their screens. To their eyes, looking through the Glass, they can see the procedure illustrated step by step with images superimposed over the skin of the model.

Stanford University live-streamed that demonstration to physicians around the world. It wasn’t a particularly complicated procedure, but it was one of the first times that augmented reality has been introduced to Glassware for the benefit of surgeons.

“You don’t need to go in blind anymore,” said Dr. Rivas in an interview with VentureBeat following the demonstration. 

“Now, we have an educated impression of where a mass is. We can better understand exactly where to make an incision so we can create less trauma.”

more at : http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/13/this-stanford-surgeon-shows-us-the-future-of-medicine-augmented-reality-google-glass-exclusive/