Wearable Intelligence: Google Glass hacked and modified for doctors

With Google Glass still in the pre-public phase, it's strange to see a pair out in public being used by a medical professional. But that's just what's happening in a teaching hospital in Boston, Massachusetts where Dr. Steve Horng is making use of his own custom Google Glass headset with real patients.

This customized Google Glass unit looks the same as a normal Explorer edition, and it still runs on a very, very similar bit of software. Modification was done by Wearable Intelligence, a group which aims to replace the entirety of the innards in Google Glass – the operating system, that is, based on Android – to make way for their own unique build.

Their unique build has a reformatted build of Android supporting the environment in which the doctor exists. It doesn't connect to social networks, it doesn't work on any other Wi-fi network than the hospital to which it's used in.

NOTE: Above you're seeing actors, while Dr. Horng is a very real doctor working in Massachusetts in a very real, very active medical environment.

According to Dr. Horng, a recent use-case proved the worth of the custom build. Allowing Dr. Horng to view patient information as he was heading in to see said patient. Because he did not have to stop to work with a separate computer to view patient information, he was able to much more quickly act on the situation at hand.

The patient was suffering from massive brain bleeding, and without Glass, said Dr. Horng, not being able to see the patient's severe allergic reactions to blood pressure medications may have resulted in very, very negative results. Without the brain of House, in other words, Glass may have averted this patient becoming disabled or killed as a result of incorrect – or late – diagnosis.

Above you'll also see another application for Wearable Intelligence – in the Energy field, and out in the field. You'll see some very, very convincing suggestions here for Glass and Wearable Intelligence as it's ready to go today.

VIA: ReCode