SAFR The Female Friendly UBER Alternative

Female-friendly alternative to Uber, Safr, launched last month in Boston.  With all the disturbing news concerning Uber and Lyft drivers the timing is just about right for Safr. A new report revealed that thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts have failed the state’s new background checks,

Safr riders can choose which gender they feel most comfortable riding with via the app—drivers have the same gender preference option—and can also take advantage of a number of built-in safety features, including a feature that can call 911, send a text to a pre-assigned contact, or dial Safr’s 24-hour command center. A color-matching system, which sends riders and drivers a color-coded message during pickups, also helps ensure passengers get into the correct vehicle.

Safr , which are currently all women, go through a more extensive recruitment, vetting, and training process than competitors.

Safr isn’t the first such startup to gear their service toward women. In 2014, New York-based SheTaxis, also known as SheRiders, tried to launch, but faced gender discrimination issues and has since folded. See Jane Go, based in Orange County, California, and conceived of by a father-daughter team worried about rider safety, began operating last September.

ER Doctors,Clinicians, Google Glass, QR Codes , & BYOD

A tech-savvy hospital in Boston developed a custom information-retrieval system for Google Glass, allowing ER Doctors to scan a QR code on the wall of each room to call up information about patients. When a clinician walks into an emergency department room, he or she looks at a bar code (a QR or Quick Response code) placed on the wall. Google Glass quickly recognizes the room and then the ED Dashboard sends information about the patient in that room to the glasses, appearing in the clinician’s field of vision. The clinician can speak with the patient, examine the patient, and perform procedures while seeing problems, vital signs, lab results and other data.

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BYOD medicine

Physicians aren’t waiting for their central IT departments, they’re finding their own ways to get access to the information they need, when they need it.  One of the most visible signs of change is the adoption of the iPad and other mobile devices by physicians. The iPad has become an essential tool for clinicians. Last October, the Department of Veterans Affairs moved to open up its network so that doctors could use their own mobile devices. While other health systems have been slow to officially adopt the iPad and other devices, John Kornak, Director of Telehealth at the University of Maryland Medical Center says, “A BYOD (bring your own device) mentality is starting to take shape among physicians, and more mobile apps are starting to find their way into use.”

There is a strong push from doctors to find mobile apps that make it easier and more seamless for them to connect to health data such as charts and radiology images.

One of the most obvious applications for the high-resolution screen of the latest iPad is displaying medical imagery. By pulling up images from CT scans and MRI scans on their iPads, Hopkins’ Dr. Fishman says surgeons now use the iPad to explain procedures to patients more effectively. “Doctors can look at their cases in real-time. Now clinicians can look at the information generated as it’s created. They can pull down CT slices in 2 seconds. It’s very fast and interactive. They can bring the image to the bedside or in the office.

Fidelity Labs Launches Preview Of Google Glass For Investors

Boston-based fidelity Investments  financial services company, said its R&D lab has begun to take a closer look at how Fidelity can use wearable technology such as Google Glass to help investors. According to Fidelity, this is similar to the testing it did years ago with mobile technology and social media. Fidelity is participating in Google’s developer program, which gives select companies and individuals early access to Glass.