For many people, trying to decipher their doctor’s handwritten prescription can feel like a daunting task.
Between the medical jargon and the often-illegible handwriting, it can be difficult to determine exactly what medications have been prescribed.
But thanks to a new feature being developed by Google, this may soon be a problem of the past.
During its annual conference in India on Monday, Google announced that it is working with pharmacists to develop a tool that can read and interpret doctors’ handwritten prescriptions.
Using artificial intelligence (AI), the tool will be able to process an image of the prescription and highlight the medications mentioned in the note, making it easier for patients to understand what they’ve been prescribed.
In a blog post, Google wrote:
“We announced today a state-of-the-art AI and machine learning model that can identify and even highlight medicines within handwritten prescriptions. This 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.
While this system is currently under development, we look forward to sharing more updates on its broader rollout.”
This feature is still in the prototype stage and is not yet available to the general public.