Remote PresenceTM Robots Help Improve Patient Care
Medical robots let physicians 'beam in' to care for patients when they can't be there in person
March 22, 2006
By Jenny Carless, News@Cisco
It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Perhaps nowhere is that more true than in a medical setting.
With Remote PresenceTM technology from InTouch Technologies, doctors can now project themselves to another location via remote-controlled mobile robots - to move, see, hear and talk as though they were actually there. This allows them to provide consistent, high-quality services more effectively to a greater number of both patients and staff. It also helps address an important societal problem - that our population is aging while the number of healthcare professionals is decreasing.
With cameras, computer screens and microphones on both the robot and at a control station, patients and physicians see and speak with each other, and the doctors can check injuries and observe the patient's monitoring equipment, just as if they were in the room.
Detroit Medical Center/Wayne State University School of Medicine
The Detroit Medical Center (DMC) and Wayne State University School of Medicine have 10 robots - one of the biggest rollouts to date of this new technology. The six-hospital group began using the InTouch Technology RP-6TM robots in the spring of 2005.
"They are tremendously helpful, because we need to cover multiple hospitals," points out Dr. Richard Santucci, chief of Urology at Detroit Receiving Hospital and one of the physicians who has spearheaded the robot effort at the DMC. "So, for example, our perinatology unit, which is downtown, can consult at a hospital that's an hour away. If they see a mother and baby in distress, they can get them downtown right away."
The Detroit physicians use the robots to see emergency room patients, to consult from one hospital to another, to add one more round of patient visits per day in the intensive care unit (ICU) and to facilitate burn-patient care.
"There's a huge benefit from being in the room via the robot, instead of having someone describe a patient's condition to me over the phone," says Santucci. "I can read all the monitors and study the flow sheet (that summarizes all the patient's data graphically) for myself."
Burn victims need their dressings changed daily - it's a slow, painful process, and the wounds should not be exposed to the open air for very long. It's hard to coordinate timing so the surgeons can see the wounds at exactly the right time. But now, the robots can be brought in right when the bandages are removed and the surgeon, wherever he or she is, can inspect the wounds immediately.
Shawnee Mission Medical Center
Physicians at Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Shawnee Mission, Kansas are also using robots to improve patient care. The 200-bed hospital has four robots; just like at the DMC, they help throughout the hospital.
The robots facilitate 'telerounds,' in which the Shawnee Mission doctors drive in to patients' rooms from their home or another office. And intensive care clinicians take advantage of the robots to monitor their ICU patients.
The robots are also used in training and supervisory situations. For example, Dr. Joseph Petelin, director of Surgix (Minimally Invasive Surgery Institute) at Shawnee Mission, runs a fellowship program to teach this technique to residents and fellows. With the robots, he can advise or help direct the surgery, if necessary, from elsewhere.
"As a surgeon, I often get calls from the ER or from nurses who are attending patients. Before we had the robots, the person on the phone described the patient, and from that, I had to conjure up a picture in my mind," Petelin points out. "Now I can go to the patient's room and see for myself."
The technical requirements to run the robots are simple. "The nice thing is that it's all on 802.11 wireless, so we don't have to have a big extensive teleconferencing suite to make it work," says Petelin.
The robots ship with Cisco Systems 802.11 a/b/g wireless cards included, according to Greg Brallier, senior director of Information Technology and Technical Services at InTouch Technologies. "We do that because most of the hospitals use the Cisco wireless access points," he explains. "And even if they don't, the Cisco cards are compatible with other manufacturers' access points."
Eye-Opening Care
"Patients really like the robot - partly because it's high-tech, I think," says Petelin. "You might think it would seem impersonal at first, but their reaction is just paradoxical; they love seeing it come in."
"I often see patients who have no warning of the robot," adds Santucci. "They're wide-eyed for about two seconds, and then they completely get it."
On a much bigger scale, the Remote Presence robots can fundamentally change the way healthcare is delivered around the world, according to Yulun Wang, Ph.D., chief executive officer and chairman of InTouch Technologies.
"The whole system has been developed from the premise that the physician needs to be next to the patient in order to offer care," he explains. "But if you take away that geographical constraint, you can fundamentally change how the healthcare system is organized - and make it more efficient."
"Not only that, there are huge differences in quality of care around the United States and around the world," Wang points out. "So once experts can consult anywhere (assuming the local infrastructure is there), then you can begin to offer the best available healthcare to all areas of the world. This is very possible, in the long run."
Jenny Carless is a freelance writer located in Santa Cruz, CA.
