J&J's anesthesia-bot loses against its human counterparts

Just because robots can be more efficient than humans and can make certain processes cheaper doesn't mean they'll always come out on top. Case in point: Johnson & Johnson is pulling its anesthesia robot called Sedasys from the market over poor sales, according to Outpatient Surgery and Anesthesiology News. It was once a promising alternative to anesthesiologists, since it can bring down the cost of administering sedation from $2,000 per procedure to $150 to $200. It eliminates the need for an anesthesia professional, after all, as it allows any nurse or doctor to put a patient under in the operating room.

One of the reasons why it experienced such slow adoption rates is because the American Society of Anesthesiologists campaigned against it. The group eventually backed down after the machine was limited for use in routine procedures like colonoscopy, but by then, they've already done their job. Unfortunately, J&J now plans to lay off 3,000 employees from its medical devices division due to its products' (Sedasys included) poor sales, so it's not a total victory for humans after all.