Robotic nurses? What next? The Hospital of the Future is here

Picture this: you are recovering from a high-risk surgery and are still feeling groggy from the anesthesia, while you awake in the intensive-care unit. Just when you think you’re regaining consciousness, a 5-foot robot stops in for a visit. Are you dreaming? Did you sleep straight through to the 22nd century? No, and no, you are not dreaming and this is really happening. A remote “robot nurse” can be piloted remotely by a doctor who sits at a command center on another floor.

Alien-like robots, with computer monitors on top, can be deployed to do a nurse’s “rounds”, checking in on patients, reading vital signs, and reporting back to the command center in real-time. Not only is this a hospital cost-cutting measure, robotic medical equipment can do its “job” without unsettling or disturbing seriously ill patients.

Robots aren’t just appearing in a nursing role either. Surgeons are increasingly using robots to perform operations, steering the robot’s movements with a mouse, rather than handling the scalpel themselves.

Robotic medical equipment isn’t the only way technology is creeping into patient care. They are just one of many advances in how hospitals function. Patients will also notice radio-frequency ID tags that track the movement of every doctor, nurse and piece of medical equipment in the hospital, enabling a faster emergency room response. “Smart beds” transmit patients’ heart rate and breathing directly to their charts, enabling nurses to respond to problems faster. And we all know it won’t be long before any doctor, no matter where you are, will have access to your complete medical history through an identifier chip, implanted under the skin.

According to industry analysts, spending on telemedicine, which includes everything from remote monitors to advanced communications systems on medical equipment, will reach $2.4 billion this year and will nearly triple by 2012. Hospitals are making these unprecedented investments to accomplish two goals: slashing error rates (and their risk-related insurance costs) through improved clinical care, and reduce patient stress, which encourages healing. Both of these goals, once met, are expected to cut costs over the long term.

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