Delivering Telehealth Through Google Glass
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Two new apps are among budding innovations jumping on Google Glass bandwagon
Google first introduced its Google Glass technology ten months ago, and although it remains in Beta testing, healthcare apps are beginning to take advantage of the new gadget. One company jumping on the Google Glass bandwagon is Pristine, headed by CEO Kyle Samani. Pristine EyeSight and CheckLists are the only HIPAA compliant, hands free, voice-controlled video streaming and checklist solutions available for Google Glass in a healthcare setting.
EyeSight securely streams real time audio and video from Google Glass to authorized iOS devices, Android devices, Macs, and PCs anywhere in the world. This allows healthcare facilities to provide another set of eyes, from anywhere, connecting those who need help with those who have expertise to improve access and outcomes at a lower cost.
According to MedCity News, the University of California, Irvine began a pilot project of Pristine’s EyeSight videoconferencing app for remote consultations with anesthesiologists and their CheckLists for surgeries. Last month, the University of Southern California’s Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, CA, adopted the app in partnership with Wound Care Advantage, a company that manages hospital wound centers. Now a third unnamed client will turn on the app in its emergency department on March 7, Samani announced at the HIMSS annual conference in Orlando.
Among the potential users for the new app are ambulances, intensive care units, and medical education. In training, Samani said Glass facilitates “virtual shadowing and rounding” for medical students and residents.
The Eyesight app does not require FDA 510(k) clearance, since it is a video stream, and thus is only facilitating communication, not acting as a diagnostic or treatment device. The same is true for the checklist app, according to Samani.
A new diagnostic app is also in trial stages. Developed by the University of California and using Google Glass’ built-in camera feature, this new diagnostic app snaps a picture of a type of diagnostic test called a "lateral flow immunochromatographic assay." Then Glass relays custom-created QR (Quick Response) codes on the test strips to computers around the world, which then submit a diagnosis back to the user.
According to Medical News Today, the app’s successful pilot used HIV and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) assays. Results showed that correct diagnoses could be returned within 8 seconds, even when taking one picture of several test strips next to each other. The app can be used with Wi-Fi or by hooking it up to a smartphone with an internet connection. The results of their research were published in the journal ACS Nano. The developers believe that data collected by the app could help researchers track the spread of diseases around the world.
Aydogan Ozcan, Ph.D., one of the developers of the app, said: "It's very important to detect emerging public health threats early, before an epidemic arises and many lives are lost. With our app for Google Glass and our remote computing and data analysis power, we can deliver a one-two punch - provide quantified biomedical test results for individual patients, plus analyze all those data to determine whether an outbreak is imminent."