Lessons from hands-free data entry in flexible cystoscopy with Glass for future smart assistance

We explore how Google Glass can be used to annotate cystoscopy findings in a hands-free and reproducible manner by surgeons during operations in the sterile environment inspired by the current practice of hand-drawn sketches. We present three data entry variants involving head movements and speech input. In an experiment with 8 surgeons and Foundation Doctors having up to 30 years’ cystoscopy experience at a UK hospital we assessed the feasibility, benefits and draw-backs of the system. We report data entry speed and error rate of input modalities and contrast it with the participants’ feedback on their perception of usability, acceptance, and suitability for deployment. These results offer an expanded analysis of the participants’ feedback compared to a previous analysis. The results highlight the potential of new data entry technologies and point out directions for future improvement of eyewear computers. The findings can be generalised to other endoscopic procedures (e.g. OGD/laryngoscopy) and could be included with-in hospital IT in the future. The source code of the Glass application is available at https://github.com/sussexwearlab/GlassMedicalDataEntry.