Google's latest feature will help users read handwritten doctor prescriptions

By Gargi Chaudhry | First Published Dec 20, 2022, 1:48 PM IST

Many doctors scribble quickly on prescriptions for medications, making it practically hard for their patients to comprehend what they wrote. Numerous IT companies have tried to address this issue for years with little to no success. Google is now attempting to translate such incomprehensible messages. The search engine behemoth said that it is collaborating with pharmacists to investigate how to understand doctors' handwriting.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) model that can recognise and highlight pharmaceuticals in handwritten prescriptions that are hard to read was introduced by Google at the "Google for India" event hosted in India.

This ground-breaking technology may greatly increase prescription accuracy and efficiency, lowering the possibility of mistakes and enhancing patient safety. Users may just click a photo of a doctor's prescription to have Google Lens identify the medications recommended because the capability is integrated into Google Lens.

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The new technology has been created to assist in digitising handwritten medical records by collaborating with people, such as pharmacists, throughout the process. However, it is important to note that no decision will be made solely based on the output provided by this technology. Instead than replacing their knowledge, it is meant to be a tool to support and improve the work of healthcare professionals.

"This will act as an assistive technology for digitising handwritten medical documents by augmenting the humans in the loop, such as pharmacists," Google said in a statement following the announcement. "A decision will not be made solely based on the output provided by this technology, however," Google added.

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With the launch of Multisearch, Google is also enhancing visual search by enabling users to look for information concurrently using text and images. In India, multisearch is accessible in English and will be made available in more Indian languages over the course of the following year, beginning with Hindi.

Additional security features are also being added to Google Pay, such as multi-layered intelligent warnings that will inform customers if the company's fraud detection system detects any questionable behaviour. Even more, Google revealed a partnership with the National eGovernment Division (NeGD) that would make it simple for Indians to access their legitimate digital documents using the Files by Google app on Android.

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