Robots in Hospitals

Dieppe writes "Robot couriers are being used in hospitals CNN. The robots are being used as delivery 'bots to deliver medicine and other hospital supplies. They are polite, and even can be overly cautious. I wonder if at night they supply them with saws, arms and other cutting devices and let them at each other? Turns out they're cost effective as well!"

Comments

Re:And...?

[ResidntGeek]

Yes, then the roobt detects the hand tremors and removes them, so that the doctor doesn't accidentally slice open an artery or whatever. I *think* it's called the Da Vinci Surgical System.

This is news?

[demonlapin]

We've had one in my med school for, oh, four or five years. They even ginned up an ID badge for him, which necessitated a naming contest (the winning entry was "Rudy").

Works just like the article says - takes drugs from the pharmacy to the floor. Fairly straightforward, really. I'm honestly surprised there aren't more in use - most hospitals (of any real size - I'm not counting all the rural 30- and 40-bed hospitals) use a pneumatic tube system of some sort to deliver meds to the floors, and those are notoriously difficult and expensive to maintain.

Re:Technology in hospitals

[jjshoe]

Are you perhaps thinking of a pyxis machine? [link]http://www.pyxis.com/[/link] The idea is fairly simple. You enter a patient id and you are given drug options. A drawer opens and you count the current amount of items. You take your item out and re-count. done.

Dr. Plummer brought a lot of technology to the health care industry that can be read here [link]http://www.mayo.edu/proceedings/2002/nov/771 1ir.pdf[/link]. One of the items it does not cover that Dr. Plummer did was an intercom system. He called the telco and told a sales person what he wanted. The sales person said it couldnt be done. Plummer demanded to speak to an engineer, who also said it could not be done. Dr. Plummer convinced the engineer that it could and will be done. vwala.

The paging sytem at Mayo now is quite efficent. You have a pager, number 11, for when you are away from your desk. Your boss decides he wants to talk to you. He answers the phone and dials 11. Your pager goes off. You pick up the nearest phone and press #11 causing you to be connected to your boss. If you are unable to answer your pager it rolls over to either a pre-defined number or voice mail. Robots arnt the only/most efficent technology used in hospitals.

Anoter fact from [link]http://www.mayoclinic.org/about/rochester.ht ml[/link] "Mayo Clinic occupies approximately 15 million square feet -- about 2.9 times the size of the Mall of America." hit the site, browse around, be amazed.