Robot Makes Rounds When the Doctor is Out
Patients at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, sometimes wake up to find a robot at their bedside instead of a doctor.
Don’t worry about adjusting their medication yet.
The new robot is being used as a videoconferencing tool so doctors can keep in contact with their patients when they can’t make rounds in person.
The $150,000 machine, a product of InTouch Technologies, Inc, is formally known as the RP-7 Remote Presence System, but the people at Sinai have nicknamed it Bari. The RP-7 is outfitted with a screen, microphone, two adjustable cameras, and a joystick which is used to maneuver it around the hospital. The doctor appears on the screen from any remote location in the world and can ask or answer questions just as if he or she was standing in the patient’s room.
There are only about 120 of the robots operating in hospitals worldwide, but early reports indicate people are reacting favorably to them. As one Sinai patient put it after using the RP-7 to communicate with his surgeon,
“If you’re laying flat like this and you see his face, I don’t care what the man’s dressed in. You’re seeing him and you’re talking to him and he’s answering your questions.”
Similar robotic devices are also being used at Johns Hopkins to provide translation services for patients who don’t speak the same language as their physician.
A study about the impact of additional robotic visits on hospital stays appears in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Sources: KPC Media Group, Inc; Associated Press; InTouch Health; Live Video
Related Links: Hospitals & Health Networks; Medgear.org
Tags: Alex Gandsas; Louis Kavoussi; LifeBridge Health; VTC
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