Google can now read your doctor’s bad handwriting
Patients often find it difficult to understand the prescriptions that doctors have rushed to write. This issue has been there for many years. The problem has been addressed by a number of software companies, but so far, little to no progress has been made.
Google has finally figured out how to decipher these strange writings of doctors. The search engine behemoth today disclosed that it has been collaborating with pharmacists to identify doctors’ handwriting at its annual conference in India.
Users of Google Lens will soon have the option to upload a photo of their prescriptions from their photo gallery or take one themselves. After processing the image, a Google executive demonstrated how the software highlights and finds the prescriptions indicated in the memo.
The company stated that the technology will: “Act as an assistive technology for digitizing handwritten medical documents by augmenting the humans in the loop such as pharmacists, however, no decision will be made solely based on the output provided by this technology.”
The company said that India has the most Google Lens users worldwide, though it did not immediately say when the new feature would go live. This could be a sign that India would be the launch country.
Google can now read your doctor’s bad handwriting
The annual Google for India event in South Asia highlights a number of recent advancements for the region. The development of a single, unified model that would support more than 100 Indian languages for both speech and text was also announced by Google for India.
India is a major market for Google with more than half a million users. It’s been difficult for Google in South Asia, where it was slapped twice in recent months by India’s antitrust regulator.
