Google Glass finds its audience in medical community

CrowdOptic has teamed up with the doctors at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) using Google Glass to help save lives

At the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery's annual meeting, doctors demonstrated how Google Glass could be used in a medical setting.

Jim Kovach, senior vice-president of CrowdOptic, said: "We saw in medicine, where say physicians would want to share views over an operating theatre."

One of the more popular areas for the application of Google Glass is in treating strokes.

Don Frei of the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery, said: "We lose about two million neurons per minute if you stop the blood flow to the brain, and nobody wants that, so time is so critical."

Putting the glass in the ambulance, or the emergency room, can give neurologists a head start.

Wade Smith UCSF neurovascular service director, said: "By us seeing the patient remotely, we can prepare in the hospital to treat them more aggressively and fast."

It turns out the very thing that gave the glass a reputation problem with consumers is what doctors like most about it, the ability to capture images unobtrusively.

Smith said: "You can put it on your head, you can free your hands to do things that you need to do."

It can be used in training with the tiny, specialised devices used for stroke treatment.

Keri Hawkins, medical device training director, said: "Most of the time they're having to look over their shoulder. This gives the unique vantage point of being in the operator's eyes."