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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!"
Robots are also being used in delicate surgeries, to ease hand tremors by the surgeon. They use various methods of control, but the basic idea is the doctor is in a different room and the robot in the operating room, weilding the scalpel, clamps, camera, etc.
ResidntGeek
In Germany, an US product called RoboDoc was working for several years doing pre-programmed hip joint operations. Several hundreds of victims are now preparing to sue the hospitals - the ensanguined operations have led to severe destructions in nerves, muscles and bones.
My mother (an RN) was recently complaining about the hospital she works in going to using computers in place of paper to do all the patient reports. She had a fit when I told her the local hospitals are using laptops and scanners in every room and medicines are kept lockedup until the nurse scans the patient ID. After the computer verifies the patient it then unlocks the proper drawer so the nurse can get the proper medicine. Now this comes along and she will end up in a nut house for sure.
Sig temporarily out of service.
These would be very useful in performing all the menial hospital tasks and free up nurses to do the more important stuff. For instance, why not have bots that empty bedpans, scrub/disinfect the floors (and vac up the occasional 'urp). It would also be beneficial to have 'bots for retrieving/turning the hefty or bedridden patients. This would also help in lowering the nursing staff injuries due to fatty-tossing (I have relatives that routinely lift 500+ lb'ers).
I don't know about you guys, but our hospitals up in Canada don't allow the use of cell phones within the building. I guess they figure that they may interfere with some of the life support machinery. Now their allowing some robots to run around? Sounds a little iffy to me don't you think? I think I would be a little scared if I was half-a-wake and some nurse was giving me some needle that a robot just handed her. You might even think you were abducted by aliens!
At least you can auto-clave robot hands... /.) bacteria killing surfaces.
And yes, I do realize you can auto-clave human hands too, but only once.
Plus, the robot won't pick his nose between rooms.
Perhaps the robot could be coated with one of the previously mentioned (here on
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
While yes, these robots can replace a human for delivering supplies, keep in mind that hospitals have used volunteers for that job for years. These robots won't save a hospital 200,000 dollars a year until they replace the doctor. :0]
Quite a while ago I saw a presentation from three competing teams for a hospital robot. The first team, lead by AI types had spent quite a bit of time trying to program intelligence into the robot so that it would be able to navigate through the hospital and go around people. That team was bested by another who simply painted a magnetic stripe on the floor and had the robot stop whenever there was movement within two feet ratio. The winner of the competition placed train tracks hanging from the ceiling and used a simple real time controller that handled electric toy locomotives delivering medicines to the rooms. The cost was that of a few tyco sets.
"I wonder if at night they supply them with saws, arms and other cutting devices and let them at each other?"
m l
From http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/302_bots.ht
"Two robotic surgical systems have received FDA clearance to be marketed in the United States: The da Vinci Surgical System, made by Intuitive Surgical, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., is cleared to perform surgery under the direction of a surgeon. The ZEUS Robotic Surgical System, made by Computer Motion, Inc. of Goleta, Calif., has been cleared by the FDA to assist surgeons."
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Um, I'm not sure why this would be modded offtopic. I'm a doctor and work in hospitals quite a bit. This is a real problem. The human couriers are often paid little so competence is not the norm for many of these workers. There are often long delays gettin meds up to the floors as a result. Also, drug abuse or selling does occur among the staff and MDs despite many obsticals. Obviously, a robot has no interest in taking drugs for its own purposes so this is clearly a real advantange.
:)
We have one of these things in one of the hospitals I work in routinely. So far its done a good job. I haven't heard any complaints yet. Plus, its surprisingly entertaining to jump back and forth in its path forcing it to try and find a route around you. this doesn't help expediency however
PING
I HAVE A DELIVERY
PING
On a loop every 30 seconds until someone responded (annoying when you aren't well). IIRC it had numeric code and a different compartment for each nurses station, so no stealing from others.
Funniest was when it would encounter a wet floor sign or similar, and didn't know the difference btw that and a human. Would say "Excuse me, I need to get thru" 2-3x, then back up and go around.
Wonder if they had to pay royalties to Steven Hawking for having the robot simulate his voice?
LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
AGVS (Automatic Guided Vehicle Systems) have been in use in factories, hospitals, prisons, jails, mail rooms, etc. for a long time. The last real job I had (prior to becoming self employed) was as Service Manager for a robotics company that built AGVS with capacities ranging from 50lbs. to 6000lbs. and carried everything from the mundane mail and laundry to (exciting stuff!) explosives, and in one installation, people. Inmates, in fact, from the jail to the courthouse and back via an underground tunnel. Get busted, ride a robot!
One client company who shall remain nameless (hint: starts with an "I" and ends with "ntel") had problems with jealous employees sabotaging and abusing the AGV's in their factories, believing that they were replacing human workers. Maybe they did replace human workers, maybe they were responsible for keeping more jobs in the US than would have been offshored without them. I dunno.
Those AGV's all had voices, and were polite. If you were detected on or near the (buried) guidepath, the vehicle would slow and politely say, "Excuse me." If you didn't step away, the vehicle would stop and repeat "excuse me" every so often until you did. (It was comical to encounter a stalled machine asking a cardboard box to move.) Once you moved, it would say, "Thank you" and proceed on its way. Upon arriving at a destination where it expected human interaction, it would stop and say, "Hello."
We built AGV's that could open and close doors, ride elevators, and accept their marching orders via wireless LAN or manual entry. The more complex installations had central controllers that could dispatch a vehicle from anywhere in the facility to anywhere else, tell it what to do at each stop along the way, route them on alternate paths to avoid congestion, etc. They were adept at avoiding collisions with other vehicles, and taking themselves out of service as they neared battery depletion -- when they'd seek an opportunity charger and put themselves on charge. Fun stuff.
The mail delivery vehicle in our factory received far less maintenance than it ought to have, and sometimes wandered into a wall, where it would patiently ask, "excuse me", until it was rescued. So I named it Harvey (because it was a Wallbanger). One of our more powerful machines, during prototype testing, moved Harvey's favorite wall by several inches -- I wonder if they were involved in some kind of conspiracy.
That company, Apogee Robotics, ceased operations ten years ago and certainly wasn't without competition. This stuff ain't news!
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I'm glad I read this after losing the option of giving in to temptation!
The new PACS system there by the way (was well as on the USNS Mercy) is sweet.
I bet. My friend (Tom Sweet - do you read Slashdot?) showed me the old system with features like "Wanna see the EKG for room 563 at 1:14PM on the 23rd of February?" and I was pretty blown away by the scope of it. The only other network I'd ever seen was an old Xerox Star system and I still thought my little Amiga 2000 was pretty powerful.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Soon robots similar to this one will be in more places and become smarter and smarter. I work in a automation factory and get to see large stationary Fanuc robots in action. These thing could rip your arms off and not miss a line of programming. In 10 years, larger and smarter robots will be capable of waling with lege like Aismo, navigating with systems developed from all the autonamous navigation contests and have the strength of large factory robots. These things are scarry, and i just wanted to post my opinion
Oh, yeah. I can just see the original thinkers at Hollywood, Inc. making a movie about these. Robots, designed to serve and help mankind, a minor flaw,
There was a short story I remember reading (but completely lost the name of the author/title), which feature a man who was the last human being on Earth. Something on the lines of cryogenic storage is used to store people with terminal illnesses until they can be cured. During this time of his storage, the entire human population declines, with robots replacing much of the manual work. By this time the entire human population has gone, the entire planet is run by machines which give themselves the purpose of working on curing the remaining humans of their terminal illneses, but the humans die from the shock of regaining consciousness and not seeing any other humans around. The last human manages to survive this shock and proceeds to first search the continent, then the planet, then the solar system, then finally the nearest stars in the hope of finding life, all the time while bouncing in and out of cryogenic sleep for the odd million years. By the time the reports from the first exo-solar planets have been returned, the only life found is slow-moving plant-life, which doesn't impress the guy. After several billion years, when the sun has gone into the red-giant phase, the machines have found intelligent human life, even if they do have a slight greenish hue to their skin. The guy ends up travelling at warp-speed to the new planet to land on a paradise. Well, at least it was a happy ending.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
But pneumatic tubes are fast: fast enough to transport recently made radio-isotopes for radiopharmaceutical use. I can't see a robot going that fast.