Pharmacy Automation and Technology Potential Uses of Google Glass in the Pharmacy

摘要

Sometimes we just have to marvel at the technological advancements that are occurring around us. For example, Apple clearly revolutionized the cellular phone so that today's smart-phones actually are smart. The competition has provided a significant challenge to Apple's iPhone, resulting in a better iPhone and other smartphones that provide great options. Clinical information systems are drastically changing the way knowledge-based and patient-centric information can be shared within a health system. Your patients have new tools (like portals) that—a-liow them to engage the health system from their homes (and from their smart-phones). Your patients can even collect health and wellness data at home and share it with the health system electronically. You can likely identify many other technological advancements that are changing the way we work.We wonder, though, what opportunities Google Glass (also known simply as Glass) might offer pharmacy staff in health systems. While neither of us was selected to be a Glass Explorer (individuals given the opportunity to buy early releases of Glass for developing and testing), we have had the opportunity to experiment with a colleague's set. Before we get too deep into what Glass might offer in pharmacy, we should describe what Google Glass actually is. Glass is a wirelessly connected almost hands-free computer that you wear like glasses. The heads-up style display uses a prism and sits just in front of the user's eye, although there is not a set of traditional lenses. Users interact with Glass primarily through voice controls, with some controls being activated by users touching the frame. Sound is provided through bone vibration technology that vibrates the user's mastoid bone,allowing only the person wearing Glass to hear what it has to say. Glass has picture and video capture capabilities, using the entire viewing area as the recordable field. Glass runs the Android operating system, includes GPS functionality, and has a 1-day battery life. The Google Glass Explorer program began in the spring, and a consumer version is expected sometime in 2014.