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Robots in Hospitals
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Jul 06, 2004 04:17 PM
from the but-can-they-make-a-good-martini dept.
from the but-can-they-make-a-good-martini dept.
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!"
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Let's Make a Movie! Yow! (Score:5, Funny)
There was a comic I won at a school fair in the late 60's, with cover ripped off (probably return donated by distributor) Magnus Robot Fighter, which would fit the bill rather well.
Re:Let's Make a Movie! Yow! (Score:3, Interesting)
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 repla
Re:Let's Make a Movie! Yow! (Score:5, Funny)
> Hey! We could call it "I Robot"! Man, I can hear Asimov rolling around in his coffin...
Wow, the way you connected the dots there is just scary insightful.
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Re:Let's Make a Movie! Yow! (Score:3, Funny)
Preliminary tests show that as long as Hollywood exists they will churn out enough derivitive drivel to fuel the dead author's spin. By harnessing that spin we could do away with all other forms of electricity generation.
A second patent has been filed to collect the fury of Harlen Ellison and turn it into useful energy. Although when he dies he'll be added to the Dead Author Energy Farm(tm).
The final patent I have pending is
Speaking Of Crappy Movies (Score:5, Funny)
And...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Millersville University's Research in Haptics and Surgical Simulation [millersville.edu]
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Re:And...? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:And...? (Score:5, Interesting)
That is, the doctor can do virtual surgery on a heart thats blown up to appear to him to be six feet across. He removes/cuts/does whatever to a managable six inch chunk of it, and the robot replicates that on the real heart, in sub-millimeter fashion.
Pretty cool stuff. Still very much in development though, but there have been some early trials.
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Re:And...? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And...? (Score:3, Insightful)
I
Re:And...? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can actually filter that out.
Other cool things would be to use force-feedback combined with imaging technologies so that surgeons could do stuff like make critically sensitive areas seem rigid, like brain tissue or blood vessels around a tumour.
The VR aspects of it too also let you do image and motion scaling as well as work at weird angles, so that certain types of microsurgery become possible, you could sew arteries like pairs of jeans, or operate on a beating heart.
Surgery is particularly a good application for this stuff because it's relatively easy to simulate the surgeon's tools.
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little has changed.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically, nothing has changed since Tron?
Or since the kit-based "line follower" robots, for that matter.
(Yes, I know that most other bots are smarter than that, I used to live across the street from Pyxis. Get over it, I did RTFM.)
Re:little has changed.. (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong movie [imdb.com] there, bub. Looker predated Tron by over a year, and it actually FEATURED the trash robots running around. Just watch out for the bad guys with their "invisio-flashy-thingy" guns.
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.oO (Score:5, Funny)
Robot: Scalpel.
Doctor: Domo arigato, Nurse Roboto.
Well, it looks like the hackers have a new target (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait to see what phrase gets hacked into the voice processsor to replace this informative gem.
RoboDoc (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RoboDoc (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RoboDoc (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess hip problems are common in some canine species, so the technique go a lot of trial while doing some for animals. And dogs come in many sizes so the techniques once refined could scale easily according to mathematical models.
This was about 10 years ago. If it's not the same outfit, then there was some parallel work going on. In any event, deploying robots to do hip replacements was a no-brainer; hips are done all the time and are very mechanical, yet are easy to screw up and often require re-tooling at a later date. The guy I worked for was very excited that "permanent" hip replacements were in the offing. Certainly the dogs seemed to do very well, running and jumping and the whole thing. Miracles, really, according to him.
But dogs can't report the same kinds of subtle post-op issues a human could and would. Maybe it was a technology still not ready for prime time?
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Great idea! (Score:5, Funny)
Watch out! (Score:4, Funny)
Technology in hospitals (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Technology in hospitals (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Technology in hospitals (Score:5, Informative)
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/77
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.h
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Robo-sourcing? (Score:5, Insightful)
University of Virginia Hospital could save as much as $218,000 a year if it replaced 15 human couriers with six HelpMate robots, which would pay for themselves in little over three years.
Its not just IT workers that are in danger, and its not just Indian workers that are taking away jobs.
But thats just how the world works. Invention brings about efficiency but it also opens new avenues for humans. After all H. Ford's assembly line has created a net gain in jobs, right?
I for one welcome our new ... bah, hello nurse :)
Re:Robo-sourcing? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Robo-sourcing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think in these circumstances, a communist or socialist system begins to look good
You can't use the C-word anymore (no, not Cunt - I mean Communism). Even I wouldn't advocate pure communism or socialism, though, but instead a kind of capitalist meritocracy where there's still some ownership, but not to the outrageous excess we see today. Yeah, I'm for limits on personal and corporate wealth. *gasp*.
In a future where the vast majority of work has been automated, the means of most production should be owned by the people, and all the newly technologically-unemployed "useless eaters" should get their fair share of this automated abundance (rather than starving and revolting), but if you're a little greedier and want a BIGGER PIECE OF THE RESOURCE PIE, then you've got to somehow earn the whuffie by being a 'better' human being than the other 6-billion well-fed humans. What will a leisure society value the most (that can't be automated and owned by a monopoly)?
A little farther down the road and 'molecular manufacturing' enters the picture, in which the means of production can actually be owned by each and every person because there's no longer a need for a robotic infrastructure to move around the fruits of our old bulk-technology. With nanotech, each person could once again become a self-sufficient island, recycling 'garbage' molecules into food... bla bla.
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Rx Bots Make Sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Good Idea, Except For... (Score:4, Funny)
This is news? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Shh!! (Score:5, Funny)
>arms and other cutting devices and let them at each
>other? Turns out they're cost effective as well!
The first rule of Robot Club is _no_ talking about Robot Club.
They don't even allow cell phones. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was kidnapped by one of those Robots! (Score:5, Funny)
The elivator stops on the second floor and one of these robots get in. It took what seemed like forever for it to get in the elivator and get turned around. Once it had turned the right way in the elivator it then proceeded to make a bunch of tones.
The doors closed, and the elivator began to move, it then bypassed my floor went all the way to the 8th floor. Where it got out and left me standing their.
Apparently at this hospital the robots have priority on all elivator trafic. It simply overrode my selection and put in its own.
Damn Robots.
Ancient news (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, military medicine seems to be quite a few years ahead of times. By the time I'd graduated from Operating Room Tech school in San Diego in 1993, I'd scrubbed in on many arthroscopic gall bladder removals and pretty much took them for granted. I was pretty surprised a couple of years ago to see a local newspaper bragging about how our hospital had recently acquired the equipment for "state-of-the-art arthroscopic gall bladder removal". One of my friends supervised the NHSD's digital imaging system in '94 or so, and the local civilian facility is just now completing a switchover to the same idea.
I wouldn't do it again if I had the choice, but we definitely had the coolest toys to play with.
Re:Ancient news (Score:3, Interesting)
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 pre
1920's technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Pneumatic tubes would probably work better. If you REALLY want a robot, the robot could do the routing.
Overly? (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone who thinks a robot can be "overly cautious" hasn't watched enough Arnold movies. I mean, unless the robot makes you sign reams of bureaucratic forms before it will do anything, or something like that.
Need or hype (Score:3, Interesting)
I've used one... (Score:3, Informative)
Putnam Investments in Mass also has one that simply drives around reading a painted line that is only visible in ultra-violet light. It delivers the mail. Its pretty cool, but I have had a few isntances where it almost took my feet off going around a corner.
Not just at night (Score:3, Interesting)
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."
This is new? (Score:3, Informative)
I have read several books published in the early 1980's which talked about these kind of robots. Most of them were about the size of a small chest freezer (about .75m x 1m x 1.5m), and followed a line on the floor, or a buried wire of some sort. Beacons or bar codes allowed the robots to recognize where they were at on the route.
While I don't have any references for these books, one book I do own, entitled "The Robot Book" by Robert Malone (copyright 1978, ISBN 0-15-678452-1), shows on page 22 a picture of a robot called the "Lear Siegler Mailmobile" - looks basically like a large and mobile mail slot tray. I encourage anyone with an interest in robotics to get a copy of this book - lots of large, great imagery of various robots, real and fictional, as well as automata and other "automatic" machinery from earlier periods (it includes several large images of Hughes Aircraft Mobots, and a great picture of the GE Hardiman exoskeleton).
Ever wonder why the "standard" test for a simple robot is a line following 'bot? Simply because this is a major industrial task used in a variety of robotic systems, even today (very robust if done properly). I remember taking a tour of a new newspaper publishing plant in my hometown when I was a kid - they had similar robots for loading large rolls of paper into the presses...
helpful, but annoying (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Slow news day? (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
ping100 please! (Score:3, Funny)
I would think having 5 or 6 neurosurgeons working simultaneously could acheive rather extrordianry things. Say, reattachment of much beloved body parts (that's always been my favorite sugical application).
Or, multi-surgeon environments could simply make lenghty operations much more speedy (getting a surgery done as soon as safely possible is certainly benificial in most situations).
Come to think of it, why stop at 5 sugeons? make it a 64 surgeon server. I'm sure the insurance companies will love footing the bill for 64 neurosurgeons
Just make sure your hospital has installed punk-buster [evenbalance.com].
If I was a patient, and one came into my room.... (Score:4, Funny)
The dirty work (Score:4, Funny)
Robots - had them since the 1970s! (Score:4, Informative)
Their flaw: they could be stymied by standing in their way and refusing to move, which made them of limited use in pediatrics because the kids kept harassing the robots.
Re:More sterile? Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
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
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Re:security advantageous (Score:5, Funny)
No labor strikes
No complaints from handling things that smell bad
No danger from needlesticks or infections
Less possibility of contamination from outside sources or recontamination from things like cell phones
Easier to sterilize than live personel
More privacy
Unfortunatly, robots have been known to beat up old people and steal their medicine. And once they have you, you can't get away because robots are very strong. Fortunatly, they're coming out with insurance for people who are worried that they might become the victim of robots.
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Re:security advantageous (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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