Robodoctor – almost like a real one, only without hands
The avatar of the doctor comes to the patients of the St. Petersburg hospital for examination
The patients of the Ministry of Emergency Situations clinic are still surprised when a robot appears on the rounds instead of a doctor. But they already communicate with him without distrust, "as if with a professor whose hands are hidden in his pockets." In total, there are 10 different devices in Russia for using telepresence technology.
Photo: Intouch Health
"I turned on. Now I will go to the department," says the avatar of the doctor and goes on a detour through the department of the VCERM. Nikiforova. The RP-VITA robot independently finds the way to the patient within the hospital, thanks to the built-in navigation system. The medical staff sets the location of the patient and the robot moves through the corridors in hospitals, avoiding collisions with people and other obstacles. He appears at the patient's bedside, and on the screen, as in a Skype video session, is the face of the attending physician.
– A robot is not a substitute for a doctor, because its value lies precisely in the person who "got into it". Thanks to this device, leading doctors and department heads who have to work 7 days a week do not need to go to work on Saturday and Sunday, they can just regularly "enter" the robot and communicate with the staff on duty and patients if they need it, as well as make quick decisions in an emergency situations, – Mikhail Bakhtin, assistant director of the VCERM for medical information Technologies, tells about the robot – In addition, with the help of our robot we teach students – it shows them in the smallest details the course of the operation much better than a conventional video camera. At the same time, the presence of students in the operating room is not required at all.
Modern telemedicine presented at the RUNEIRO-2014 exhibition is not only robots, but also remote communication devices for doctors working in distant regions, as well as traveling to areas of natural disasters: "These are small suitcases, with the help of which doctors in emergency situations turn to narrow specialists when they need urgent advice, they immediately receive it and provide highly qualified assistance on the spot," says Mikhail Bakhtin.
The technology of remote presence makes it possible to provide timely assistance to people who are located in areas remote from large medical centers, where there are not enough specialists and often there is no way to quickly diagnose and take the necessary measures. For example, in America, 11% of medical institutions are equipped with remote presence systems, they conduct more than 65% of consultations for stroke patients due to the fact that there are no neurologists in remote regions. Experts cite data on the effectiveness of telemedicine technologies: in 2006, when they were just beginning to develop in the United States, only 1% of stroke patients performed thrombolysis (administration of a drug to dissolve a blood clot) for 4.5 hours – a period during which tragic consequences can be prevented, up to disability or death. Today, when it is possible to get a remote specialist consultation, thrombolysis is performed in 20% of patients with ONMC.
According to Professor Igor Voznyuk, Deputy Director for Scientific and Educational Work of the I.I. Janelidze Research Institute of Emergency Medicine, a program is currently being developed in St. Petersburg, according to which polyclinics and hospitals will be integrated into a single telecommunications network, with the help of which it will be possible to quickly and accurately diagnose and provide timely assistance. First of all, we are talking about patients with acute coronary circulation – stroke.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru18.12.2014