Workflow efficiency pilot study of Surgery Viewer©: A secure hands-free intraoperative multimedia interface for Google Glass

Background: The Google Glass™ heads-up-display system has been adopted by the medical field for applications such as image capture, live streaming and decision support. Methods: We designed a custom application for Google Glass™ called Surgery Viewer© to capture patient images and securely transfer them to the electronic medical record. Surgery Viewer© was compared to a standard digital camera and an Apple iOS© device using another image capture application. Comparative workflow metrics included timings of image capture and a usability survey. Results: Ten patients were studied in operating room and wound clinic settings. Average times to log in (Surgery Viewer©, Image Capture™) or turn on (digital camera) were 18.39 s, 9.91 s and 2.11 s for Surgery Viewer©, Image Capture™ and digital camera, respectively. In the operating room, the average times to select the correct patient were 3.06 s, 14.77 s and 4.45 s for Surgery Viewer©, Image Capture™ and digital camera, respectively. Average image capture times were 8.67 s, 7.77 s and 7.60 s for Surgery Viewer©, Image Capture™ and digital camera, respectively. Images captured by Surgery Viewer© and Image Capture™ were instantaneously uploaded to the electronic medical record, but digital camera images took on average 1522 s to be uploaded. In the wound clinic, the average times to select the correct patient were 16.29 s, 7.35 s and 4.63 s for Surgery Viewer©, Image Capture™ and digital camera, respectively. Image capture times were 9.55 s, 5.28 s and 3.47 s, respectively. Digital camera took on average 27,758 s to upload. Conclusion: Surgery Viewer© performed equivalently with Image Capture™ while digital camera took longer to upload. Users found the application easy to learn with Surgery Viewer© concerns, including log on procedure, ambient distraction from voice recognition, viewfinder perspective and battery life.