Among the better health technology advances energy industry discoveries of recent years, wearable technology stands out as a system poised to make an impact on the world of health care. As of 2016, there are a wide range of wearable devices that enable users to monitor their own health, following easily tracked information like heart rate and blood pressure, along with other, harder to track information such as oxygen saturation. A number of industry giants such Garmin, Sony, LG and others introduced devices that would enable users to track this information and freely share it with health care professionals.

While such wearable technology is still new, it is gaining in traction. Though the popular Apple Watch is still an uncommon device, the industry giant has a tendency to be a trend setter and where they go, other companies follow. Even though wearable technology is new, the support of a major company like Apple will likely see it expanding very quickly. Naturally given as the technology already exists, it will  likely not be very long before the scope of wearable technology expands to include health care applications that will definitely only expand as hardware and software advances as rapidly as it has for the past thirty years.

Other technologies such as augmented reality systems backed by Google Glass have already been demonstrated as effective and quite possibly another major turning point in the health care world. Stanford University has already demonstrated how surgeons can use augmented reality displays to perform a procedure while assisted by step by step illustrated images of the procedure being performed. While this does not sound like very much as we expect surgeons to remember the steps of a procedure, given the pressure novice and even experienced surgeons operate under, it is not a stretch to say that these augmented reality systems could quite easily decrease medical malpractice problems surprisingly soon.

Augmented reality and wearable technology have recently been combined at the famous Beth Israel hospital where Google Glass systems have been combining with patients' wearable technology to make it far easier for doctors and nurses to streamline their work flow among their patients. In addition to knowing when patients at a hospital are having a potential problem, it also enables doctors and patients alike to access important information sooner and allow both parties to make important, time sensitive decisions with more information and greater speed than was available even five years ago.