BIDMC doc: Google Glass 'streamlines' our workflow

In the latest post to his Life As a Healthcare CIO blog, John Halamka, CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and a FierceHealthIT Advisory Board member, discusses how Google Glass is improving life for providers at BIDMC.

Over the past four months, Halamka says, he and his colleagues have been working on pilots they believe will improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient care. One of those colleagues, emergency physician Steve Horng, calls the user experience "fundamentally different" than tablet or smartphone usage. "As a wearable device that is always on and ready, it has remarkably streamlined clinical workflows that involve information gathering," Horng tells Halamka.

According to Halamka, the process for using Google Glass starts when a clinician looks at a barcode posted on the wall. "Software, running on Google Glass, immediately recognizes the room and then the ED dashboard sends information about the patient in that room to the glasses, appearing in the clinician's field of vision," he says. "The clinician can speak with the patient, examine the patient, and perform procedures while seeing problems, vital signs, lab results and other data." Post