Google can now decode doctors' bad handwriting thanks to AI

Google can now decode doctors' bad handwriting thanks to AI

Google wants more and more people to embrace digital technology. Their latest venture involves developing a technology that can translate the prescriptions of doctors into readable texts.

Often, a doctor’s writing can be illegible. So, an assistive technology that has the ability to transform such handwritten medical notes into easily readable texts with a bit of help from humans such as pharmacists is desirable.

For this reason, the search giant announced that it is working with pharmacists to hammer out a solution for the problem experienced in reading the prescription – an instruction written by a medical practitioner that authorizes a patient to be issued with a medicine or treatment. The announcement was made 8th annual Google for India event.

Google already has the technology to interpret a text from images but what makes it difficult to read a prescription is its unstructured format in shorthand. It’s full of clues that only specialists like pharmacists can decipher. However, the new machine-learning model from Google that’s based on state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence claims that it can identify and even highlight medicines within handwritten prescriptions.

In a prototype, a Google executive demonstrated how any individual could simply take a picture of the prescription and upload it to Google Lens app to process the information and highlight the medicines mentioned in notes.

Source: TechCrunch