by
Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | December 12, 2012
But he had to wait for engineers to come up with a HUD technology that would suit his needs. And he thinks he has found it in the Kopin device. The two-pound product doesn’t need to be touched; it’s controlled by neck movements and voice, the latter powered by Nuance Communications’ speech recognition technology. The Golden-i is not a finished product and does have a few kinks, but Rizvi said the commercial device will have a faster processor and updated software. “Right now, it feels pretty good,” he said. “But at times it might be a little jittery. You can tell the device isn’t 100 percent there.”
Human-to-human
The project is still in the early stages. When DOTmed News spoke with Rizvi, the team had not yet distributed all the headsets, and was still some time away from collecting early data – data which they hope to share in June at the Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine’s annual meeting. (The team had originally planned on sharing preliminary data at the Radiological Society of North America’s conference in late November, but Superstorm Sandy, which hit Staten Island hard, forced them to delay the study.) Once up and running, Rizvi said they hope to use 10 devices in total, with five deployed in Staten Island and five with their partners at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
The device itself is also a work-in progress. Unveiled a few years ago, it’s still only a prototype, although a “beta version” is expected to be available as this issue goes to press. Rizvi said a full commercial launch, to be handled by Motorola, could come as soon as first quarter 2013. (As the device has not been released, Rizvi said he didn’t know how much it would cost.)
But the team is working on developing their own software for it, with IT consulting firm Intelligent
Product Solutions providing technical assistance. One challenge is to get
a voice-over-IP system going, so the radiologist and the ER physician could talk through the headset, with the radiologist guiding the ER physician through the images and noting points of clinical interest.
Hirschorn said, if successful, the headset has the potential to be one of those technologies that “increase human-to-human interaction instead of decreasing it.” The larger value-add, he said, would be if doctors could have a use for the device when they’re not looking at their patients’ X-rays or CT scans, such as having electronic medical records always at their fingertips.
Nonetheless, he predicts a positive reception. “There should be high satisfaction,” he said. “The radiologist serves what (the ER doctor) wants up on a little platter.”
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