- Notes from doctors being difficult to read is one of those jokes that’s actually true in many cases.
- While there is humour to it, for patients and pharmacists, getting the prescriptions right is critical.
- This is why Google is working on a tool that can decipher and translate difficult to read doctor handwriting.
It has become a bit of a trope that doctors have poor handwriting, and in our own experience, can sometimes look like chicken scratch scrawled on a prescription pad. While it is a bit of a joke at this stage, for patients, getting the wrong medication could be costly.
With this in mind, Google is working to develop a tool that is capable of deciphering difficult to read doctor handwriting, which will make the job far easier for pharmacists needing to fill out prescriptions.
As TechCrunch reports, Google made the announcement at an annual conference in India earlier today.
It is unclear when this feature will be publicly available, but it is said to be rolling out via Google Lens, allowing users to snap pictures of said prescriptions or upload an image from their library to be deciphered.
Google showcased how this feature would work at the aforementioned conference in India, with Lens capable of specifically detecting the medicines in an example of a poorly handwritten doctor’s prescription.
It is also unclear where this feature will roll out, but we’d hazard a guess that India will likely be the key territory, especially as Google mentioned that it has the highest number of Lens users across the globe. The region is also used as a testing ground for mobile features by the company, given the sheer volume of people that own a smartphone.
There will be quite a bit of work involved with this project though, as Google is also said to be working on a unified model that will need to account for the 100-plus languages that exist in India.
[Image – Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash]
[Source – TechCrunch]
