HBF looks to Google Glass to improve member fitness

Personal trainers employed by Western Australian health fund HBF are using Google Glass to improve services they provide to the insurer’s members.

Under the trial – which is running until December – trainers at HBF Fitness are testing how Google Glass will help the organisation improve the training experience for up to 15,000 of its members across 20 locations in Western Australia.

HBF’s IT team worked with WA developer, Adapptor to create a custom app that reads customers’ health data from HBF’s Siebel CRM system and presents it to the trainer.

Members participating in training sessions scan their membership card on the Google Glass device, which retrieves their attendance record, and information about their fitness and health concerns to adapt their training. Glass will also scan a QR code on the member’s smartphone.

Trainers can also view a weather forecast based on their location, refer to pre-programmed session plans and a stop-watch, and record and play-back vision.

This enables the trainer to personalise the training session to each member, David Gollan, CIO at HBF told CIO Australia.

Gollan, who has previously worked in Silicon Valley, says he is bringing a culture of innovation to the HBF IT team.

“I put a pair of Google Glasses on the table, and in one day they [HBF’s IT team], had built two working prototypes,” Gollan said. “I went and showed marketing and they were just beside themselves.”

So far, Gollan has only been able to purchase a single pair of Google Glasses on eBay to use during the trial. Gollan is confident he can use his contacts to acquire more units after the trial.

HBF trainer, Max Tamatoa, said Glass takes times to get used to, but its use in a group fitness setting had some encouraging practical benefits.

“Like most phones or tablets, Glass has an intuitive design which makes moving through the features quite natural. Like anything new, the more I use Glass, the more natural it will feel for me and our participants.”

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