Robots in Medicine

eberry writes "The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center will use a robot to mix intravenous medications and prepare its syringes. The robot, about the size of three refrigerators strapped together, can fill 300 syringes an hour, each with a custom dose and a bar-code label routing it to a particular patient. The robot should reduce the potential for errors and improve patient safety. The robot still needs further approval by the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, but that should come within a month. It should be noted that five Cincinnati hospitals already use computerized pill-dispensing systems." On the other hand, reader Bobbert sends in a cautionary note: "'A group of German patients has filed a lawsuit against financially beleaguered Integrated Surgical Systems Inc., alleging that the Davis company' Robodoc surgical robot is defective and dangerous, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.' So now with robotic surgery, both the doctor and the robot can liable for damages. Next thing you know, telecoms will be liable for medical malpractice if the network connections fail during remote robotic surgery."

Re:Human Error and Logic

[Nurseman]

For instance if the doctor entered the incorrect dose

I've worked with these types of machines for years, they WILL pick up these kinds of errors, but they will also give alot of false positves. Many times the doctors will order more than the maximum dose, in emergencies, in cases where the person is very sick etc. The machine will not dispense "more" than it is programed to. In these instances, I just opened it with a key, and took what I needed. Drove supervisors crazy :-). The nice things is they pick up on interactions that me, the nurse, or the MD may not even know about.

Re:Human Error and Logic

[drmike0099]

All prescriptions in a hospital are reviewed by a pharmacist before being entered into the computer system. If the hospital has computerized physician order entry, they additionally go through checking as the order is placed. Nurses still take the drug in their hand and review it before they administer it. Humans still review everything.

This replaces the very error-prone menial task of filling up vials with the appropriate dose and concentration of medicines. Assuming the system works as intended, there is absolutely nothing being lost here, only gained.

Paging Doctor FUD...

[Shoten]

Next thing you know, telecoms will be liable for medical malpractice if the network connections fail during remote robotic surgery.

Actually, no. Medical malpractice isn't even remotely like what a telecom would be liable for, no matter how badly they screwed up, unless they were actually practicing medicine. What they could be liable for in the above-stated situation is negligence, and frankly I don't have a problem with that. There's nothing exotic about high availablility networking these days.

This scenario also fails to take into account the fact that the link failing wouldn't be the end of the world. It's not like they just wheel the patient into the operating room and leave them there so the robot can go at it, and it's not like the robot will start wildly flailing about with scalpels and other sharp instruments just because it's no longer being told what to do. And lest we forget, the patient whose robot-surgeon has just stopped working is still all set up in an operating room, on an IV with people monitoring their vitals, in the midst of a well-equipped hospital. Not the end of the world at all.

I doubt that this gets state board approval.

[Anonymous Coward]

The state of Ohio pharmacy board might approve this robot but I highly doubt it. The rules for Rx dispensing in Ohio are not very flexible or accomadating when it comes to technology. I doubt they would approve non-human supervised dispensing regardless of the accuracy.