Does Google Glass Have a Place in the Operating Room?

Hospitals are finding innovative ways of adapting the head-mounted computer to healthcare environments.

Nearly a year ago, Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told U.S. News & World Report how Google Glass might help medical professionals do their jobs a little better. "Just as the iPad has become the chosen form factor for clinicians today, I can definitely see a day when computing devices are more integrated into the clothing or body of the clinician," he wrote.

Since then, Google Glass has not exactly gone mainstream, but some — including Halamka's colleagues at the Harvard-affiliated hospital — are finding innovative ways of adapting the head-mounted computer to healthcare environments.

Late last year, Beth Israel Deaconess starting employing Glass in its emergency department. In January, project champion Dr. Steven Horng saved a life by pulling up the patient's medical record on Glass to learn which drugs the man was allergic to in time to stop a brain hemorrhage; in April, the hospital decided to expand its Glass pilot program to the entire ED...