Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, COVID -19 Coronavirus, Electronic Records, JAMA, Technology / 04.03.2021
Calling Dr. Spot: Robotic TeleDog Can Perform Key Hospital Tasks
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_56821" align="alignleft" width="107"]
Dr. Traverso[/caption]
Carlo Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD
Associate Physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Assistant Professor,
[caption id="attachment_56823" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Chai[/caption]
Peter R. Chai, MD, MMS
Emergency Medicine Physician and Medical Toxicologist
Harvard Medical School
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are some of the functions that Dr. Spot can facilitate?
Response: During the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to consider innovative methods to provide additional social distance for physicians evaluating low acuity individuals who may have COVID-19 disease in the emergency department. While other health systems had instituted processes like evaluating patients from outside of emergency department rooms or calling patients to obtain a history, we considered the use of a mobile robotic system in collaboration with Boston Dynamics to provide telemedicine triage on an agile platform that could be navigated around a busy emergency department. Dr. Spot was built with a camera system to help an operator navigate it through an emergency department into a patient room where an on-board tablet would permit face-to-face triage and assessment of individuals.
Dr. Traverso[/caption]
Carlo Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD
Associate Physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Assistant Professor,
[caption id="attachment_56823" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Chai[/caption]
Peter R. Chai, MD, MMS
Emergency Medicine Physician and Medical Toxicologist
Harvard Medical School
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are some of the functions that Dr. Spot can facilitate?
Response: During the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to consider innovative methods to provide additional social distance for physicians evaluating low acuity individuals who may have COVID-19 disease in the emergency department. While other health systems had instituted processes like evaluating patients from outside of emergency department rooms or calling patients to obtain a history, we considered the use of a mobile robotic system in collaboration with Boston Dynamics to provide telemedicine triage on an agile platform that could be navigated around a busy emergency department. Dr. Spot was built with a camera system to help an operator navigate it through an emergency department into a patient room where an on-board tablet would permit face-to-face triage and assessment of individuals.
