Austin, Texas-based Pristine, maker of a video streaming Google Glass product for healthcare, raised $5.5 million in a round led by S3 Ventures with participation from Capital Factory, HealthFundr, and strategic clients. This brings the company's total funding to about $6 million.
Pristine's flagship product, called EyeSight, streams near-real time audio and video from Glass to authorized iOS devices, Android devices, Macs, and PCs so that, among other uses, wound care nurses can transmit point-of-view video to a physician; emergency responders can send relevant video and information to hospital staff who are preparing to treat the patient; and surgeons can send a livestream of a surgery from their point of view to residents, fellows, and surgeons at other medical centers.
According to the company, this product was born from a common question in healthcare facilities, which is: “Hey, can you come over here and look at this?”
“We have deployed EyeSight in ERs, ORs, ICUs, ambulances, and even patients’ homes,” Pristine CEO Kyle Samani said in a statement. “We understand that security is paramount. There is a lot of misinformation about Glass and privacy out in the wild; we have gone the extra mile to guarantee security and control for our clients. Our utmost focus on security will fuel our growth as we scale our wearable communication technology throughout healthcare and across other industries.”
Pristine removes Glass’ integration with Google+, Gmail, Maps, Search, and other apps before deploying it into patient care environments, which according to the company makes Glass “a controlled, HIPAA compliant, enterprise appliance”. The Pristine-modified Google Glass also isn’t connected to the internet — it just streams live, encrypted video and audio directly to a receiver.
The service is now used at more than 20 locations across the US. Clients of Pristine include Brown University and University of California Irvine. At UC Irvine, not only will doctors use the device, but students will also be able to try out the program as part of their schooling.
A Rhode Island Hospital has begun a feasability study using Pristine and Google Glass to provide dermatology consultations to patients in the emergency room. For six months, which started in March 2014, emergency room patients who required a dermatology consult and consent to the study are examined by ER physicians wearing a Pristine version of Google Glass. The wearable transmitted images to an off-site dermatologist, who accessed them via a tablet. Rhode Island Hospital hopes to use Glass for many other telemedicine applications, including pediatric consults, stroke care, and emergency response.
