Detroit hospital rolls out robotic "doctors"
By Marc Perton 
posted Apr 7th 2005 8:00AM
posted Apr 7th 2005 8:00AM
Detroit Medical Center has become the latest hospital to test
robotic "doctors" developed by InTouch Health, a California company that specializes in "remote presence" for
healthcare. The bots are essentially wheeled, white-coated units topped with two-way displays that allow doctors to
check in on patients from remote locations. The robots, each of which costs hospital $3,500 per month, were previously
tested at UCLA Medical Center. Given that one doctor has already rolled out a
robotic nurse, we imagine it will only be a matter of
time before hospitals are fully automated and the only humans patients come in contact with will be in the billing
department. Oh, wait. They've already been replaced by machines.
because even doctors don't want to be in detroit anymore...
We have similar telesurgery systems in place in Ontario Canada since 2003. In Canada, they use Zeus surgical robots communicating via Bell Canada's IPVPNe network (basically an ultra-rugged, QoS-enabled IP network). In one of the first trials, a doctor performed a laparascopic acid-reflux surgery from 400 km away!
hey! that company is a Covad customer. They provide them with T1 lines that come with a guarantee of Quality-of-Service, the highly coveted comodity of the VoIP community
So when will doctors in India being doing the rounds for a hospital in the states?
I agree #4. You can get surgery done for half the cost. Maybe level the playing field when it comes to outlandish medical charges. Then again you know how government loves to dirty the water.
...DARE FOR MORE... the next step ... clinicians would soon start desiring (logically) recording of physiological parameters like temp., pulse etc, remotely through their rolling counterparts.
Who knows, InTouch Health may already be in for intensifying telerounding by coming up with RP6-II the smarter offspring of RP6. All the best ITH !!