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Before scrubbing in on a recent Tuesday morning, Dr. Selene Parekh, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke Medical Center, slipped on a pair of sleek, black glasses — Google Glass, the wearable computer with a built-in camera and monitor. He gave the Internet-connected glasses a voice command to start recording and turned to the middle-aged motorcycle crash victim on the operating table.
Dr. Parekh has been using Glass since last year, when Google began selling test versions of its device to thousands of handpicked “explorers”. He now uses it to record and archive all of his surgeries, and soon he will use it to stream live feeds of his operations to hospitals in India as a way to train and educate orthopedic surgeons there.
At many hospitals, a growing number of surgeons are using Google Glass to stream their operations online, float medical images in their field of view, and hold video consultations with colleagues as they operate. The Glass projector is slightly above the user’s right eye, allowing doctors to see medical information without turning away from patients.
One doctor who does not allow the device in his practice, Dr. Matthew S. Katz, said that security and distractions were primary concerns. A doctor wearing Glass could accidentally stream confidential medical information online, and patients might not feel comfortable with their doctors wearing cameras on their faces. “From an ethical standpoint, the bar is higher for use in a medical setting,” said Dr. Katz. “As a doctor, I have to make sure that what I’m doing is safe and secure for my patients — ‘First, do no harm.’ Until I am, I don’t want it in my practice.”
Bakul Patel, the senior policy adviser at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices, said the agency would regulate only those Glass software programs that function as medical devices, the same approach it takes on health applications on hand-held devices. “The glasses have been on our radar and we’re excited about it,” Mr. Patel said.
Hospitals that are experimenting with Glass say they are doing so very carefully — obtaining patient consent before procedures, using encrypted networks, and complying with the federal regulation that protects patient privacy. Augmedix, a company that has done pilot tests of Glass at medical centers in the San Francisco area, said patients were informed that their doctors would be wearing the device. In a study of 200 cases, only two or three patients asked that their doctors remove it.
Some hospitals see Glass as a relatively low-cost and versatile innovation, much like smartphones and tablets, which more than half of all health care providers use to get access to patient data and other medical information. But hand-held devices are not very useful in the sterile world of surgery. Because Glass is voice-activated and hands-free, it may be particularly well suited for the surgical suite.
Dr. Parekh performs back-to-back surgeries on most days, wearing the Glass headset as he moves from one patient to the next. About six years ago, he founded a charity with the goal of advancing foot and ankle surgery in India. He travels there every year with a team of expert surgeons to hold clinics and training sessions for local orthopedic surgeons. In January, at a conference in Jaipur, Dr. Parekh performed surgery and used Glass to stream the procedure on his personal website. That day, the site drew in so many visitors from India and elsewhere that it crashed. “I’ve been even more excited about Google Glass since then,” he said.
Source: New York Times (Adapted from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/, June/2014)
Mark T (true) or F (false) according to text:
( ) Surgeons uses the new device to record and archive their surgeries.
( ) The Glass projector is somewhat below the doctor’s right ear.
( ) Some doctors think patients might not feel comfortable with them wearing cameras on their faces.
The correct sequence from top to bottom is:
