Examining patients, clad in white and sporting a stethoscope, the doctor is in. As always, questions and banter mix. Except this doctor is, well, a robot.
In this suburb outside Sacramento, Mercy San Juan Medical Center is home to a new family of robots. Doctors can make remote visits to patients via PCs or iPads running the robots.
The latest hospital robots, dubbed RP-VITA, come from Roomba vacuum cleaner maker iRobot and InTouch Health. Like R2-D2 in Star Wars, they can roam about on their own, guided by sensors and software that maps locations to avoid collisions. Doctors can also navigate them around ICUs and other facilities.
RP-VITA stands more than 5 feet tall and has what looks like a large tablet computer for a head. Doctors can appear on the screen much like a video chat and use front-facing lenses to zero in on patients.
California hospitals are leading the way at putting them in play in what is shaping up to be a new
Read the rest of this article on USA Today: Paging R2-D2 to the hospital ICU
