We have developed an application on Google Glass for use in emergency

departments in hospitals. Specifically, the application provides a Heads-Up

Display (HUD) to an emergency doctor, displaying relevant data related to
certain patients.
Over the last few years, mobile computing devices have quickly become a
integral of many consumers lives. Indeed, smartphones, which are
appropriately regarded as handheld computers, allow the user to browse the
internet, do some social networking, send email and take pictures, all on a
small device perfect for carrying around at all times. Wearable computers,
such as Google Glass, form the next iteration of mobile computing, bringing
entirely new possibilities to light. These possibilities revolve around the
concept of augmented reality (AR), where the user's perception of the
environment is "augmented" by a computer-generated sensory input [1]. In
our case, augmented reality is provided by a set AR glasses, which enable the
user to interact with a head-mounted heads-up display without clouding the
users view.
In the light of this new form of technology, some industries are still lagging
behind when it comes to communication, notably the health care industry.
Currently, many doctors still use pagers as a primary means of
communication. In fact, inefficiencies due to the use of pagers cost American
hospitals $8.3 billion every year in lost productivity and increased patient
discharge times [2]. Indeed, the potential savings in patient wait times and
productivity could led to significantly positive outcomes, especially in
emergency medicine, where waiting times can be critical.
INTRODUCTION
The first step in the project was to obtain a device on which the AR
application could be designed. At the time, several companies were
developing AR glasses, so a particular device was to be selected. Among the
requirements for such a device were device availability, ease of development,
hardware features/performance and price [3]. In the end, Google Glass was
decided as the most suitable device for this project.
The application required the acquisition of a Google Glass unit, which had
been obtained in late 2013. Until that time, most of the development was
entirely theoretical.
The development and testing stage of the design were performed using
standard practices for Android development. Since Google Glass development
borrows heavily from the existing Android ecosystem, the Glass application
was designed using Android Developer Tools (ADT), a development
environment suited for developing applications on the Android platform. ADT
allowed for easier layout design and provided insight into the inner workings
of the application.
For purposes of demonstration, a smartphone is connected to the Glass unit,
permitting remote control over the operation of the Glass. Hence, the Glass
could be controlled even without direct possession of one. Moreover, the
screencasting capability of the Glass, paired with pre-existing tools for
broadcasting a smartphone UI, allows for the Glass UI, and therefore the
application, to broadcast on a large monitor.
METHODS
FLOWCHART
CONCLUSIONS
We have created an application on Google Glass allowing emergency doctors
to look up information about their patients. Due to the interest that this
project has garnered, augmented reality indeed has very appealing
applications in the medical world. We hope to see it play an even bigger role
as more capable devices enter the market.
Indeed, AR can be extended for many more uses, including: interfacing with
medical equipment (e.g. reading directly from an medical monitor), being
used as a visual aid (e.g. placing an overlay of a patients X-ray scan on the
patients body), or identifying patients using facial recognition.
REFERENCES
[1] D. Cassella, "What is Augmented Reality (AR): Augmented Reality Defined, iPhone
Augmented Reality Apps and Games and More," Digital Trends, 3 November 2009. [Online].
Available: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-augmented-reality-iphone-apps-games-
flash-yelp-android-ar-software-and-more. [Accessed 1 April 2014].
[2] V. Kopytoff, "Where pagers haven't gone extinct yet," CNN Money, 16 July 2013. [Online].
Available: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/07/16/where-pagers-havent-gone-extinct-yet/.
[Accessed 1 April 2014].
[3] S. Hill, "A Look at all the Google Glass competitors in development," Digital Trends , 22
August 2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/google-glass-alternatives/.
[Accessed 1 April 2014].
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to our collaborators at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital
without which this project would likely not have taken off:
Dr. Alan Azuelos
Dr. Joel Turner
Dr. Wayne Choi
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, Montral, Qubec, Canada
Payom Meshgin, under the supervision of Prof. Warren Gross
Medical Applications of Augmented Reality Glasses
SCREENSHOTS
At application launch, the application waits for the user to issue a valid voice
command, and behaves according to the command. The implemented voice
commands are:
CBC [patient #]
Vitals [patient #]
Electrolytes [patient #]
Take note [patient #], message [note content]
Each of the commands is related to a particular database query to be
executed on the database server. However, for security reasons, the database
server is not directly accessible from the device. Therefore, any database
queries are to pass through a PHP script. Hence, the application must first
send HTTP messages to the PHP server where the script is run in order to
send queries or retrieve results from the database.
All query results are parsed by the PHP server into a JSON (JavaScript Object
Notation) object which is decoded by the application and thus can be
processed to achieve correct behavior.
FUNCTIONALITY
4 April 2014 ECSE 499 Honours Thesis II