• What we do
  • The People
  • About Us
  • Why Innovation Africa
  • Contact Us
Innovation AfricaCreating the Future Today
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
  • Google Glass Isn’t the Future of Wearables

    October 24, 2013 Editor 0

    Everybody is hopping on the wearables bandwagon. Since the publication of my HBR article on wearables, I’ve been asked a number of follow-up questions from executives, tech analysts, and most especially from entrepreneurs.

    Though the questions vary, they generally fall into three buckets.

    “Aren’t Head-up Displays (HUDs) like Google Glass where the market is going?”

    No. Not necessarily. Pricey (and for now, socially awkward-looking) HUDs will likely be a sliver of the nearly half-billion units that will ship by 2018. By comparison, most other types of wearables will be relatively cheap, and as socially unobtrusive as a ring or wristband.

    No doubt, there will be well-defined segments of HUD wearers. For instance, emergency first responders and many disabled people will immediately benefit from additional contextual information the tools display that enhance safety and the ability to navigate tricky situations. The more you consider real data and use-cases, the more you see wearables’ potential to support humanistic aspirations.

    However, as I suggest in my HBR piece, we should vigorously question the ethics and effectiveness of any “asymmetrical” uses of HUDs. The presumption that a Google Glass wearer has a right to ascertain information from others who haven’t opted in isn’t necessarily socially acceptable. (HBR editor Scott Berinato calls Glass wearers who point their devices at others who haven’t opted in “glassholes”). It may not even be legal. In the work place, any use absolutely must be accompanied by clearly stated benefits to the employee (not just the employer) and ensure her data privacy. Otherwise, it’s Orwellian.

    Aren’t wearables basically just a hands-free PC or smartphone?

    Some wearables are indeed the next stage in the evolution from PCs to smartphones to tablets. Samsung’s watch, for example, tethers to its phone and lets you take and receive calls and texts. But many others tools and applications, such as the one I describe below, are discontinuous. They support radically new ways to improve work and society. The opportunity in the discontinuous space is probably bigger, and certainly some of the killer apps for wearables haven’t even been conjured yet. Something will take us by surprise.

    Aren’t wearables just the latest cool new toys?

    When people ask this sort of question, they’re usually wondering if these things are just technology for technology’s sake. They want to know about purpose, whether and how they can use (or “hire”) a wearable to fix a problem. In my research, I already see evidence and use cases of a number of ways wearables are helping organizations solve specific and sometimes intractable problems.

    Here’s an example of a wearable that speaks to each of the three points above: it’s not socially awkward to wear and offers a radically new solution to a big problem.

    The problem: Each year in the United states, about 5 percent of hospital patients catch an infection while being treated, leading to nearly 100,000 deaths.  Hospital-borne infections like MRSA cost hospitals about 10 percent of their operating budgets, and the overall US health care system about $35 billion.

    The challenge: Research shows that 70 percent of these infections could be prevented or made less severe by following basic hand-washing guidelines set by the World Health Organization (WHO), though only about 4 in 10 hospitals effectively comply.

    The solution:  Some hospitals in Florida are piloting a wearable solution called IntelligentM. Doctors, nurses, and all other caregivers wear RFID wristbands with motion sensors, that interacts with tagged locations around their hospital.

    For instance, at a hand-washing station, the smartband tracks the user’s sequence of hand movements and offers prompt feedback: Good hand washing that follows the WHO guidelines leads to a single quick vibration in the wrist, while missing the mark prompts three vibrations as a nudge to try again.

    The devices connect to other critical locations, equipment, and “events” in the facility, proactively reducing oversights by busy staff. Staff receive alerts as soon as they walk into a patient’s room if they haven’t first washed their hands. Same if they’re about to perform a procedure requiring hand washing, such as inserting an IV needle.

    Wearers also upload their data at the end of each shift and then receive a monthly hand hygiene report card. This shows each provider’s compliance results and, for comparison, those of her unit and facility. A surgeon can see that her unit was 80 percent compliant, but that she only hit 52 percent—a number that should provoke a change in her hand-washing routine.

    The aim here is to replace visual observation, the costly and labor-intensive approach used at most hospitals to track hygiene. With visual observation the data-sets tend to be small and statistically unreliable, while the numbers from the wearables initiative are abundantly detailed. These context-based and segmented analytics are meant to help administrators spot individual and group trends. Instead of simply knowing that her hospital was 72 percent compliant, an administrator could see that ER nurses are 89 percent compliant before dressing wounds but only 57 percent compliant after touching patients—a red flag worth addressing at a team meeting.

    As New Yorker writer and physician Atul Gawande has noted, the barrier to attacking big problems like hospital germs is that they are “invisible…and making [solutions] work can be tedious…” In the everyday tedium of washing hands, a buzzing wristband can serve the critical function of reminding a busy doctor when there’s a better way to go through the motions.

    When I look past the knee-jerk use cases (“let’s look at the Eiffel Tower and get a Wikipedia entry about it”) and sci-fi scenarios (“let’s rate people like books and get a star rating when we look at them”) I see the real rise of wearables in cases like the hospital wristband— specific, positive developments where wearables are going to—indeed are already—making a difference.


    Go to Source

    Related Posts

    • The gas cylinder, the motorcycle and the village health team member: a proof-of-concept study for the use of the Microsystems Quality Improvement Approach to strengthen the routine immunization system in Uganda.The gas cylinder, the motorcycle and the village health team member: a proof-of-concept study for the use of the Microsystems Quality Improvement Approach to strengthen the routine immunization system in Uganda.
    • Partnership Expands ICT Support for Ebola Fight in West AfricaPartnership Expands ICT Support for Ebola Fight in West Africa
    • Shaping Global Partnerships for a Post-2015 World
    • A Global Online Network Lets Health Professionals Share ExpertiseA Global Online Network Lets Health Professionals Share Expertise
    • Landmark report sets priorities to address malnutritionLandmark report sets priorities to address malnutrition
    • New technique yields never-before-seen information critical to biofuels researchNew technique yields never-before-seen information critical to biofuels research
    Sovrn
    Share

    Categories: HBR, Insights

    Tags: Atul Gawande, Head-up display, Personal computer, Wash hands, World Health Organization

    Three Things that Actually Motivate Employees Africa: Empowering the Disabled Through Elearning

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.

Subscribe to our stories


 

Recent Posts

  • Entrepreneurial Alertness, Innovation Modes, And Business Models in Small- And Medium-Sized Enterprises December 30, 2021
  • The Strategic Role of Design in Driving Digital Innovation June 10, 2021
  • Correction to: Hybrid mosquitoes? Evidence from rural Tanzania on how local communities conceptualize and respond to modified mosquitoes as a tool for malaria control June 10, 2021
  • BRIEF FOCUS: Optimal spacing for groundnuts in smallholder farming systems June 9, 2021
  • COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on the achievements of Sustainable Development Goals in Africa June 9, 2021

Categories

Archives

Popular Post-All time

  • A review on biomass-based... 1k views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Y... 814 views
  • Can blockchain disrupt ge... 809 views
  • Test Your Value Propositi... 763 views
  • Prize-winning projects pr... 727 views

Recent Posts

  • Entrepreneurial Alertness, Innovation Modes, And Business Models in Small- And Medium-Sized Enterprises
  • The Strategic Role of Design in Driving Digital Innovation
  • Correction to: Hybrid mosquitoes? Evidence from rural Tanzania on how local communities conceptualize and respond to modified mosquitoes as a tool for malaria control
  • BRIEF FOCUS: Optimal spacing for groundnuts in smallholder farming systems
  • COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on the achievements of Sustainable Development Goals in Africa
  • Explicit knowledge networks and their relationship with productivity in SMEs
  • Intellectual property issues in artificial intelligence: specific reference to the service sector
  • Africa RISING publishes a livestock feed and forage production manual for Ethiopia
  • Transforming crop residues into a precious feed resource for small ruminants in northern Ghana
  • Photo report: West Africa project partners cap off 2020 with farmers field day events in Northern Ghana and Southern Mali

Tag Cloud

    africa African Agriculture Business Business model Business_Finance Company Crowdsourcing data Development East Africa economics Education Entrepreneur entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship ethiopia ghana Health_Medical_Pharma ict Information technology Innovation kenya knowledge Knowledge Management Leadership marketing mobile Mobile phone nigeria Open innovation Organization Research rwanda science Science and technology studies social enterprise social entrepreneurship south africa Strategic management strategy tanzania Technology Technology_Internet uganda

Categories

Archives

  • A review on biomass-based hydrogen production for renewable energy supply 1k views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Your Big Data Innovations in Agriculture 814 views
  • Can blockchain disrupt gender inequality? 809 views
  • Test Your Value Proposition: Supercharge Lean Startup and CustDev Principles 763 views
  • Prize-winning projects promote healthier eating, smarter crop investments 727 views

Copyright © 2005-2020 Innovation Africa Theme created by PWT. Powered by WordPress.org