From the Editor — But Will We Wear Them?

Beth G. Sisk, Editor

Speaking at a plenary panel session on Innovations Shaping the Future of Patient Care at Medical World Americas in Houston in April, Dr. Stephen N. Oesterle, Senior Vice President for Medicine and Technology at Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN, predicted that implantable and wearable sensor technology will be the best way for doctors to take care of people remotely. He declared that in the coming years Google will be his company’s biggest competitor, not Boston Scientific, St. Jude, or the other traditional medical device companies that you would expect.

Co-panelist Dr. Robert C. Robbins, President and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, agreed, but said that current innovations are already changing the medical landscape. He said: “To be a great surgeon, you’ve got to have a great memory. But with Google Glass, you can call up all the information available and it’s right there in front of you.”

Google as a medical device provider seems to be a theme Oesterle really believes, as he repeated this and expanded upon his beliefs at the MassMEDIC annual conference in May where he gave a keynote speech on the future of the industry. While Medtronic spends and spends big on research and development, Oesterle claimed that it’s just a fraction of the amount that Google is investing—mostly in research.

Initially available only to developers, in April Google Glass was made available to the public for just 24 hours at $1,500. The early adopters, which Google calls Explorers, now have access to the device for beta testing and development, and Google has slowly let more of the general public purchase one to get a taste of, and for, the device.

Apple, while it has not yet announced any new products, has been going about hiring biomedical and hardware experts, mostly in sensors technology, according to Reuters, which also reported that Apple has registered the trademark “iWatch” in Japan.

But while Apple is stealthily building its brain trust and formulating just what its next great product will be, other technology companies have already introduced their wearable devices, including the aforementioned Google Glass and Samsung’s line of Galaxy Gear smart-watches. Samsung is also reportedly working on a high-tech glass device that it plans to introduce in September.

But Google Glass is not all the company has up its sleeve. In January, Google revealed that it was testing a smart contact lens built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor embedded between two layers of pliable contact lens material.

In a conference call with analysts in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted, “We’ve got some great things that we’re working on that I’m very, very proud of and very, very excited about.” But, he continued, “It means much more to us to get it right than to be first.”

Historically, physicians and surgeons drove the development of medical devices. With the rise of wearable health technology, it appears that patients will be driving, and wearing, the technology.