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."

There's still a level of human interaction

[bwcarty]

From what I read, the robots don't administer the injections.

Having been through chemo, I know that the first thing the nurse did each time was show me each of the syringes that were to be injected into my IV. Each was labelled with the medicine name and dosage.

I never saw the syringes being filled, but since I'm still alive, I trust that there's some degree of verification before I even saw the bag that contained all my chemo meds. For all I know, a robot could've mixed the meds, and I'd be none the wiser.

Prescribing errors.

[Tackhead]

> I hate frivilous lawsuits, but at least with a human doing the filling of drugs there is some common sense that can be a fail-safe. With a machine all it takes is a bug to have 300 vials of poison dealt to unsuspecting patients. Won't there still need to be human oversight?

Take a look at your doctor's handwriting the next time you get a prescription. If you can't figure it out, your pharmacist probably can't either.

Human oversight is having sufficient presence of mind to ask your doctor "What drug am I being prescribed? At what dosage? In what form?", remembering the answer, and comparing what your doc told you with what's on your prescription... and with your pharmacist gives you after reading your prescription. In at least one recent study, around 6% of prescriptions result in errors [ama-assn.org].

In the absence of that oversight, I'll take my chances with the robot.

use your common sense

[painehope]

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

Yeah, and engineers might be held responsible if the bridges they design and build fail under normal/expected operating conditions.

Oh, that's right, I believe they are.

If the country gets hit with a tactical nuke, I think it's understood that shit happens. If some underpaid joe in Bumfuck, Idaho drives a piece of heavy machinery through the fiber conduit, I expect you to have a near-transparent failover. That's what engineering is about. It's about having the knowledge and experience to design and test well. That's why some people have objections to MCSE or RHCE certs using the word "engineer".

If you're providing the network service for my remote robotic surgery, you goddamn well better have a fault-tolerant re-routable network in place. And an on-call heart surgeon who can be there in minutes. Because if your negligence messes me up, you better believe that myself or my children will pay you a visit personally. We'll have a little chat and it will involve a butane torch and a ball peen hammer. That's a personal message from me to you, mister golden-parachute budget-cutting book-cooking CEO.

how long until...

[lysergic.acid]

the rx robot develops a morphine habit and starts skimming off shots of pain killers to feed its own habit?

but seriously, is our nation's medical staff so incompetent/overworked that they can't even load a syringe properly? if so, removing this particular responsibility from their job will only give them more chances to cause potentially fatal blunders in other areas. i've heard so many horror stories about doctors and nurses collapsing patients' veins trying to administer IV medication that I'd almost trust myself more with a syringe than hospital staff. Maybe instead of paying for this $640k robot, they ought to invest more in better training for hospital staff.

Re:Human Error and Logic

[MotherErich]

Anyway you look at it - it all comes down to human error. A doctor, nurse, programmer. The most rational way to look at it is what's going to help us save the most lives. There's always going to be human error, we can't prevent that.

Think about where the 'robot' is getting the prescriptions - what if someone puts the wrong medication in the wrong storage area of the machine? (I presume the machine's got a number of different med's to deal with) It'd be the same if the nurse somehow grabbed the wrong bottle from the shelf.

Bottom line: faster + more efficient = more lives saved
Unfortunately the equation gets a lot more complex when you factor in fear, doubt, and lawsuits.

There's always going to be someone to say, "if only it wasn't for that damn machine!"
But then there's always going to be someone to say, "if only it wasn't for . . . the countless other things that can go wrong in life."

-brother bummer & daddy downer