Google Glass Has Now Been Used During Surgery

Here’s one of the many firsts we’ll no doubt be hearing about regarding Google Glass as more and more people get their hands on the device. A doctor, Rafael Grossmann, MD, FACS, used Googl...
Google Glass Has Now Been Used During Surgery
Written by Chris Crum

Here’s one of the many firsts we’ll no doubt be hearing about regarding Google Glass as more and more people get their hands on the device. A doctor, Rafael Grossmann, MD, FACS, used Google Glass to record a procedure in which he inserted a feeding tube into a patient. This was streamed via Hangout.

Dr. Grossman, who is in Google’s Glass Explorer program, blogged about the experience, saying, “By performing and documenting this event, I wanted to show that this device and its platform, are certainly intuitive tools that have a great potential in Healthcare, and specifically for surgery, could allow better intra-operative consultations, surgical mentoring and potentiate remote medical education, in a very simple way.”

“The patient involved needed a feeding tube (Gastrostomy) and we chose to placed it endoscopically, with a procedure called PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy,” he writes. “You can Google that to learn more…). Being the first time, I wanted to do this during a simple and commonly performed procedure, to make sure that my full attention was not diverted from taking excellent care of the patient.”

Before the actual procedure, Grossman recorded himself explaining the event, and talked about the importance of not revealing any of the patient’s health information. He stresses that privacy was taken into a great deal of consideration, and he obtained informed consent, and made sure no recording or transmission of any identifying information took place.

“I had Google Glass on at all times, with the HO active thru-out the procedure,” he writes. “The live video images that I saw thru Glass, were projected in the iPad screen, remotely. We kept the volume down on purpose. We tried to keep it very simple (the KISS principle!) and straight forward. As I said, even the procedure was a simple one.”

The iPad, he says, was just yards away, but could have been anywhere.

[via Forbes]

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