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summer 2010 |
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h e a l t h t e c h n o l o g y
Physician of the Future
Robotic telemedicine improves patient outcomes
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Submitted Photo |
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Dr. Michael Jong |
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Twenty years
ago, the only place you could expect to see a robot racing down a hospital hallway to respond to
a medical emergency was in science fiction films. Today, robotic telemedicine is very real and
it’s helping to save lives in remote communities.
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By NLMA Staff |
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Twenty years ago, the only place you
could expect to see a robot racing down a hospital hallway to
respond to a medical emergency was in science fiction films. Today,
robotic telemedicine is very real and it’s helping to save lives in
remote communities.
The Community Clinic in Nain is staffed by
six nurses, eight personal care attendants, a laboratory attendant and
one robot named Rosie.
Rosie is a five-foot tall mobile robotic
platform that enables physicians to be remotely present through the
integration of virtual technologies. The Remote Presence Robotic System
removes time and distance barriers by extending a physician's reach to
manage patient care. Since January, Dr. Michael Jong and Dr. Gabriel
Woollam have been using Rosie to connect with patients and staff at the
clinic in Nain from a laptop in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
“It’s basically human-sized
videoconference equipment on wheels. The height and width is similar to
that of a human. The person at the other site can see my face and I can
speak to them and move around. It’s quite mobile. I can drive the body
around anywhere into any room in the clinic,” says Dr. Jong.
Formally known as the RP-7, the robot is
the flagship product of InTouch Health, a medical technology company
based in California. Nurses at the clinic in Nain affectionately renamed
the robot Rosie after the robot maid from the 1960s cartoon series
The Jetsons. Labrador-Grenfell Health in partnership with the Nunatsivut
Government have been using the technology as part of a Health Canada
pilot project to examine the RP-7’s effectiveness in delivering medical
care to remote areas.
“There are many remote communities in
Canada especially in the northern regions and we know that access to
medical services can be problematic and the cost is tremendous for both
governments and patients. We’re going to see if this can be used as a
tool that can be applied elsewhere,” says Dr. Jong.
“Remember these communities are very
remote and the only way you can get there is by plane. You can’t get in
or out of Nain if the weather is bad and you can’t get into Nain at
night because the plane cannot land when it’s dark. If you have a
patient who is not breathing and you don’t respond immediately, they
will be dead by the time you get there. The RP-7 saves a lot of time and
it gives us a lot more valuable information,” he adds.
Using a dedicated Internet bandwidth
connection that is used exclusively by Labrador-Grenfell Health, Dr. Jong and Dr.
Woollam are able to connect securely and remotely from just about
anywhere. When a medical emergency occurs at the remote site in Nain,
patients there are triaged along with patients waiting in Happy
Valley-Goose Bay. The physician can then connect to Rosie to deliver
emergency management, consultations, expert diagnostic services, therapy
recommendations and clinical support. “The more serious a patient’s
condition, the more important it is to see a patient rather than just
listening. It’s almost impossible to lead a resuscitation by phone; the
staff is just too busy to take the time to describe what’s going on.
Also, when a person is trying to describe what a patient or their
condition looks like, the imagery that one person has can be quite
different from their verbal description,” says Dr. Jong.
Rosie’s panoramic visualization system
allows the physician to have real-time visual and verbal communication
between patients and medical staff using wireless webcams, microphones
and speakers. A 15-inch monitor located at the top of the device shows
an image of the physician’s face, while he controls the robot using a
joystick and a mouse.
“Initially, I thought it would change the
physician patient dynamic, but most of the patients I’ve seen are quite
comfortable with the robot. It is fairly life-like. The image of my head
is life-sized on its screen and you can maintain constant eye contact
with the patient,” says Dr. Woollam.
“The RP-7 also allows us to access
patients much more independently than our previous technology. We can
log on at any time and go anywhere. The power of the camera is far
superior to our old system and we’re able to zoom in and out very
rapidly for examinations and for reading the patient’s charts,” he adds.
The RP-7 is also equipped with a printer
for prescriptions and can be used in conjunction with ancillary
monitoring equipment such as a portable ultrasound and a digital
stethoscope, which relay information to the off-site physician. The
robot is even capable of sensing and driving to its own base station,
where it then docks itself to recharge its batteries. Built-in sensors
prevent the robot from bumping into people or walls.
“The convenience of robotic telemedicine
for us right now is better access for patients to medical care and
physician services. The further a patient lives from medical services
the greater the likelihood they will have a poorer health outcome. Rosie
may be the answer to enhance the quality of their health care and to
help improve their health outcomes,” says Dr. Jong.
“We will have to wait and see what the
impact of this pilot project is. My suspicion is this will prove to be a
useful tool and I think you will start to see more of them in smaller
communities.”
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