Wearable technology like smartglasses are continuing to make significant waves in the world of healthcare. From enhancing the efficiency of procedures to improving the quality of diagnoses, smart eyewear is set to bring positive change to our interactions with medical professionals.
Whether we’re seeking treatment for an ailment, or are looking to better understand our symptoms, smartglasses, and the augmented reality technology they can provide will be a significant step in enhancing our experiences throughout the healthcare industry.
But how exactly can our experiences in the world of healthcare be improved with the use of smartglasses? Let’s take a deeper look into a technology that can bring revolutionary change in caring for our health:
Contents
Improving the Accuracy of Procedures
Smartglasses can pave the way for life-saving efficiency throughout many areas of healthcare, but none more so than during medical procedures like surgery.
Before, during, and after surgical procedures, surgeons can collaborate on a remote basis through the use of Smart Sugery Assistance glasses to deliver far greater accuracy throughout all parts of the process.
The smartglasses, which have already been developed by healthcare firms like Rods&Cones, allow surgeons in more acute care scenarios to share essential information and even their field-of-view with external medical device specialists instantly–without having to pause their procedure or hold a device in their hands.
This means that during emergency situations, experts can be dialled in from around the world to share their expertise in real-time to bring far greater efficiency and success rates to different surgical operations.
Through this technology, different medical device reps can now be on standby to share their expertise with any hospital at any time, and from any location–providing around-the-clock coverage that can help to save lives in the process.
Because the technology itself is easy to set up, there’s very little barrier to adoption in terms of training, which means that we may see these smartglasses bringing better efficiency to surgical procedures on a more widespread scale in the near future.
Smartglasses as a Time-Saving Tool
In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service has recently deployed smartglasses as a means of helping to free up time spent on home visits to patients.
With the consent of the patient, wearable eyewear can help to transcribe an appointment directly to electronic records, meaning that nurses don’t have to commit time to detail the specifics of their meeting with a patient.
In addition to this, staff will be capable of using the smart eyewear to share live footage with their colleagues to gain a second opinion on a diagnosis–helping to prevent instances of follow-up appointments or hospital admission. The glasses also feature thermal imaging to better assess the extent of ailments and their healing process.
With community NHS nurses estimated to spend over half their day filling out forms and manually inputting data following meetings with patients, these smartglasses could be a revelatory tool in the bid to bring new efficiency to a healthcare service that’s in need of modernization.
Should the technology take off in the UK, we may see different healthcare sectors in the US adopt the technology. In states where it can be tricky to find an optometrist, these glasses can help to bring more accuracy to exploring the health of our eyes in a more visual manner with high-quality second opinions remotely available.
Improving Access to Special Consultants
According to a study by UMass Medical School, smartglasses are actively helping to improve the treatment of patients in complex cases or rare illnesses, such as poisonings that require access to toxicology experts.
While access to remote consultations is growing through the use of smart technologies, smart eyewear will be a development that helps to bring cases right in front of the eyes of an industry expert in real time.
This can help them to actively assess the condition of a patient and offer advice based on their condition at the time, rather than relying on imaging that may be out of date.
Through wearing smartglasses, physicians can share the feed of patients suffering from highly-sensitive conditions that require immediate and accurate treatment with professionals from anywhere in the world. By dialling in the right expert at the right time, this technology can not only save time but lives too.
As the medical world continues to adopt smartglasses as a technology to improve efficiency and the accuracy of healthcare, both patients and practitioners alike are set to reap the rewards of a more advanced system.
As a tool that has the potential to not only save time but lives as well, the implementation of smartglasses can accelerate digital transformation in healthcare on a global scale–bringing meaningful change throughout the industry.
