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Telemedicine Becoming More Mainstream Worldwide

RP-Vita telemedicine robot

from joshbyard:

Nearly 1,000 hospitals in the U.S. and abroad have installed InTouch telemedicine devices, including about 50 RP-VITA robots launched in May, according to company officials.

The company rents out the RP-VITA for $5,000 per month. When a doctor is needed at a remote hospital location, he can log into the RP-VITA on-site by using a computer, laptop or iPad.

The robot has an auto-drive function that allows it to navigate its way to the patient’s room, using sensors to avoid bumping into things or people. Once inside the hospital room, the doctor can see, hear and speak to the patient, and have access to clinical data and medical images.

The physician can’t touch the patient, but there is always a nurse or medical assistant on-site to assist.

(via Robots Let Doctors ‘Beam’ Into Remote Hospitals – Business Insider)

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Electronic Health Records Stressing Out Docs

Electronic_medical_record

According to a Rand report, doctors are expressing concern that current EHR technology interferes with face-to-face discussions with patients, requires physicians to spend too much time performing clerical work and degrades the accuracy of medical records by encouraging template-generated notes.

Rand Report:Docs ‘stressed and unhappy’ about EHRs | Healthcare IT News
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Leveraging QT for Wound Care

Using QT Platform for Wound Care

Compelling progress on the wound care front…

Although a promo vid for the companies mentioned — Eykona (a startup device maker) and QT (hybrid open-source/commercial development platform) — the story gives us great insight into how wound treatment is advancing via mobile and open source technologies.

 

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Accelerometer analysis for dummies

Accelerometer analysis for dummies

The advent of accelerometers has been a boon for medical device designers. The problem, though, is too much data, too many variables, too few tools for managing the output. From Obesity Panacea’s blog, however, we get a good backgrounder on how to wrangle those datasets once we’ve got them, and turn it into meaningful insight and product direction.

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Actical’s wearable accelerometer for monitoring sedentary and ambulatory behavior.

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Wearable Electronic Sensors Can Now Be Printed Directly on the Skin

Wearable Electronic Sensors Can Now Be Printed Directly on the Skin

Who needs wearables when you’ve got embeddables? Scary and Huxleyian, yes. Practical and money-wise? Probably. For the infirm, the aged, the burgeoning population of noncompliant, non-adherent sufferers of chronic disease…this is your future. If you won’t wear the device, if you don’t respond to the device, if you don’t take your meds, you’ll probably be faced with the devil’s choice: have a sensor implanted or lose your insurance.

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Colorized micrograph of an ultrathin mesh electronic system mounted on a skin replica.

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A sensor “bandage,” applied directly to the skin, can monitor and transmit body temperature, strain, and hydration state of the skin.


Via MIT Technology Review.