Google Glass may not be hitting the shelves of retail stores anytime soon, but it certainly is making a name for itself in the enterprise market. Venture capitalists seem to see great potential with the wearable technology, and are investing heavily in the healthcare industry. Augmedix, a service dedicated to improving the doctor-patient relationship, is one company that has made headlines for its innovative use of the technology.
“For me, if I don't look at a patient’s face, I would miss a lot of emotions. Now I don't even have to turn the computer on in the room. All I say is, 'Jade give me the information I need' and she just puts it up there.”-Dr. Manju Hapke
So exactly how much funding has Augmedix received? – $16 million in 2015 alone! Though this was a large investment, the company has actually received a total of $23 million since its inception and that number is expected to keep growing due to the benefits of their service. Augmedix works by equipping physicians with the Google Glass wearable technology while seeing patients. From there, the visit notes are automatically filled in and the physician needs only to review and sign the notes. According to Augmedix, their technology allows providers to spend 75% less time writing charts in the EHR, which in turn allows more time to build upon the overall patient-doctor relationship.
Kevin Spain, General Partner of Emergence Capital, states that, “Augmedix is leading the charge in wearables for business and is focused on the large and lucrative U.S. healthcare space.” For other startups in the same arena, there is certainly much to be learned from Augmedix as its service is already featured in five healthcare systems in the U.S. One facility, CHI Health Center in Omaha, even has plans of introducing more doctors to the Google Glass program every 3 months. With Google recently announcing that the product has “graduated” from its experimental stage, a vast expansion in Google Glass for enterprise can be expected for 2016.
