Google Glass,  Health Care,  Medicine,  Meetups

Google Glass Health Care Challenge

Last evening I pleasure of sitting on a panel at an event hosted by Health Innovators discussing the future of medicine and specifically Google Glass. The event title was Google Glass the new frontier in Healthcare Innovation? and although I’m not sure how many converts were made, I did come away with knowledge of an incredible organization pushing medical thought leaders to push the boundaries of wearable tech.

One of my co-panelists, Sony Salzman of MedTech Boston told us about the ongoing Google Glass Challenge and some of the ideas submitted, the strict judging criteria and generally gave us insight into the brains focusing on Glass development in medicine.

Sony Salzman
Sony Salzman discussing the challenge

There are multiple rounds to the competition with the winners of round two being announced just today. Finalists will compete in an April pitch off which this writer will most definitely attend.  The following is from the MedTech site.

Submissions were judged by a panel of renowned clinicians and technical experts, including the White House Innovation Fellows and MIT Hacking Medicine. Ideas were judged primarily on their clinical impact and practicality.
The Envelope Please!
Without further ado, here are the three semi-finalists of round two, who will join the four from round 1 and the winners of round 3 in our “Pitch-Off” to be held in April. Semi-finalists are listed in order of their combined total score:
Todd A. Theman, MD, a surgical resident in the integrated Harvard Plastic Surgery training program at Harvard Medical School had the highest combined score for the submission “Expert on Call” which proposes using Google Glass to allow specialists to consult on cases in resource poor settings without the cost and risk of transporting the patient hundreds of miles to the nearest medical center.
Timothy Aungst, Pharm.D., Assistant Professor at MCPHS University and Editor for iMedicalapps.com came in second with the submission “Bringing the Doctor to the Patients Home: Google Glass in VNA Care”. This submission proposes giving Google Glass to nurses who perform post-discharge home care visits so that they can stream their examination directly to the clinician, who can request specific diagnostics to be performed during the visit.
Andrew Gonzalez, MD, Vascular Surgery Health Services Research Fellow at University of Michigan advanced to the finals with his submission “Using Google Google Glass to Streamline Triage of Acute Stroke Patients” which envisions equipping EMTs with Google Glass so that the stroke-certified physician can administer the NIHSS to the patient while still en-route to the hospital.

Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas and congratulations to all the winners! Don’t forget, there’s still two days to submit your ideas for round 3, which ends on March 22. Just click here to submit your idea today!

If you have any interest in wearables, the future of medicine or the intersection of technology with the most open of human interactions then I suggest you follow Med Tech Boston  @SonySalz , Health Innovators @Health2Innovate

eLearning Consultant focused on Moodle for Enterprise Learning. A long time eMarketeer and lover of the handshake, Don is bringing both loves together through NH Innovation Nights and other networking groups such as Wearables New England Meetup group. Don's Innovator's Pod, podcast, is the latest offering for helping entrepreneurs get the word out.

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