At this stage in the rollout of Google Glass, it may seem the gadget’s "cool factor" exceeds its practicality.

For cardiologist Jordan Safirstein, however, it has already taken its rightful place in the operating room alongside his other surgical equipment. He’s found his Glass has quickly become everything from a lectern to a blackboard to a telephone.

"Okay, Glass: Make a video call," Safirstein said in a firm voice as he began a recent cardiac catheterization and stent insertion on a 41-year-old patient.

Medicine has always been quick to find new uses for new technology, said Jeremy Greene, an internist who teaches medicine and the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. No sooner had the trans-Atlantic cable been completed, for example, than doctors used it to conduct international conferences.

Google Glass, unveiled in 2012, is a wearable computer with a miniature, head-mounted display screen smaller than a Scrabble tile. The wearer sees it as a tiny image floating in one’s peripheral vision.

It can follow voice instructions to get information, take photos, make a phone call, or shoot and store video.

In Safirstein’s case, it video-streams whatever is in his field of vision, sending it to Google Hangout, where his students can view it live on their smartphones or tablets.

It makes for a great way to teach his cardiac fellows — doctors in their final year of specialty training — about tricky situations encountered in surgery. The fellows can watch from a nearby room, or tap into the video stream from other locations, such as the Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute at Morristown Medical Center.

"It streamlines our instruction while letting us do the rest of our work," said Firas Kaddaha, one of the fellows.

ADVANCES OVER TIME

Technological advances have often aided the field medicine. When we think of big leaps, we often think of equipment: X-rays, CAT scans, pacemakers, stents.

Just as important, however, are leaps in medical communication. No sooner had the telephone been introduced in the 1870s than doctors touted the benefits of a quick diagnosis over the phone.

Soon after, however, there appeared cautionary articles about "the Do’s and Don’ts of telephone medicine," Greene said. Today’s concerns about Google Glass — its reliability in an emergency, its risk to patient privacy — "were often said about the telephone," he said.

Google Glass is the logical extension of the long quest by surgeons to improve their vision in the operating room, from using jewelers’ loupes to improved surgical lighting, said Rachel Prentice, a medical anthropologist at Cornell University.

Inventions that improve a doctor’s ability to perform tasks he or she already performs tend to be adopted quickly, she said. A technology that opens up a whole new field — such as the X-ray — takes longer for physicians to become comfortable with, said Prentice, an associate professor with the Department of Science and Technology.

GOOGLE GLASS EXPLORER

Safirstein was invited to be on Google’s health care advisory board. He said he begged to be selected as a Google Glass Explorer. Explorers are allowed to purchase the device, which is not yet available to everyone.

Safirstein’s version of Google Glass has no conventional lenses. Instead, it’s simply an empty frame with a tiny screen attached. Tip your head up, and the motion engages the device. Swipe the temple bar — even in surgical gloves — to select a function. When at rest, Safirstein’s Glass shows a homepage displaying the weather in Morristown.

His early-adapter approach was recently recognized by MedTech Boston, an online medical technology site, which named him one of four semifinalists in its Google Glass Challenge. Launched in partnership with the White House Innovation Fellows and MIT Hacking Medicine, the contest seeks to recognize new uses for technology in health care.

Doctors and hospitals already keep extensive records of surgical procedures, including freeze-frame shots showing the catheterization at various stages. A Google Glass recording can augment that record, providing video that can be used in lectures or conferences.

Hospital lawyers have expressed concern that any use of Google Glass must abide by patients’ privacy rights.

But it turns out patients love hearing that Safirstein will be using his Google Glasses during their surgery.

"They’re always very interested," he said. "They want to see it, and to know how I’m going to use it."

It’s still new technology, one whose glitches have not yet been ironed out. At a recent demonstration, Safirstein’s phone had difficulty maintaining the connection between the Glass and the hospital’s wi-fi. Because he was already scrubbed and in the sterile operating room, he could not reach inside his surgical gown to fiddle with his phone, which was providing that link.

"Connectivity is an issue," he said, noting it could be the OR’s thick walls thwarting the Glass’ ability to tap into the hospital’s network.

So far, Safirstein has used his Glass to teach others about catheterization, but he envisions it could be useful in cases when he needs to learn from others. A specialist elsewhere could be called for a video "consult" to give guidance, or the patient’s referring physician could peek in during the surgery so a joint decision could be made about how to proceed.

THE FUTURE

It’s the hands-free nature of Google Glass that makes it so intriguing for health care, a field in which seeing and touching a patient are crucial to treatment.

Safirstein can see a time when ambulance EMTs will be able to treat a patient en route to the hospital, while at the same time transmitting a live image for the ER staff to view.

Noting there is already an app that allows a smartphone to take an electrocardiogram, he envisions the day when an EMT can attach leads to a patient while saying, "Okay, Glass, take an EKG."

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