A doctor completed a surgery wearing Google Glass for the first time.
Dr. Rafael Grossman, a trauma surgeon from the Eastern Maine Medical Center, detailed his experience in his personal blog as he wore a Google Glass while doing the surgery. He was also proud to say that the surgery was the first to use Google Glass Hangout instead of a video camera to capture the entire procedure and stream it live for those who have the receiver with them. This was done with the patient’s permission of course.
He was very careful during the surgery to ensure that there will be no identifying information about the patient. The patient’s face and health information were not compromised during the procedure. The patient underwent a procedure called ‘percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy’ wherein a feeding tube is passed through the abdominal wall. It is often performed to patients that needs nutritional support yet unable to eat or drink.
Grossman also explained his intention of using Google Glass during the surgery 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”.
Grossman setup Google Hang-out between his Google Glass and Google Account which he all prepared just for this procedure. His personal accounts were not used to ensure it leaves no track about the patient’s information. The connection was remote using an iPad as a receiver where all the procedures were projected.
The video is not yet available but he promised to post it on his blog soon wherein he will be heard talking about the surgery and the importance of concealing the patient’s health information.
