Robotic Blogs

HealthSouth Corporation (NYSE: HLS) and Motorika Ltd. announced today that the companies have signed an agreement to advance the application of robot technology in HealthSouth's inpatient rehabilitation hospitals.

Under the terms of the worldwide agreement, Motorika will have the exclusive license to market and sell the AutoAmbulator®, HealthSouth's robot-assisted gait therapy system and Healthsouth hospitals will install Motrika's Reo(TM) Go platform for robot- assisted arm therapy in at least 25 of its hospitals.

Motrika will also take over the manufacture, design, installation, maintenance, technical support, training and distribution of the AutoAmbulator.

"This agreement is a defining moment in applying robotic technology to benefit patients receiving therapy for neurological conditions," said Omer Einav, Motorika's founder and chief operating officer. "HealthSouth and Motorika will create a new standard of care for neurological patients, with an integrated full body solution that enables precise levels of functionally- oriented therapy to deliver better patient outcomes."

Part of the agreement also includes collaboration on the development of rehabiliataion robots for home use.

The AutoAmbulator® is a robot-assistance machine that allows patients with neurological conditions such as stroke, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury to replicate a normal walking pattern on a treadmill in a safe, efficient manner.

Reo Go(TM) is a robotic guide and modular handle, with software to customize exercise patterns and measure performance, to enhance and support the patient upper body rehabilitaion.

HealthSouth and Motorika Announce Agreement to Create New Standard of Care for Robot-Assisted Therapy: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

A new robot team from Aethon Inc. of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania is designed to track and deliver equipment around a hospital.

The TUG robot is in used successfully in many hospitals already - deliverng samples and medication. Now with a new partner, HOMER, and RFID tags on the equiptment, they work together to keep things in order.

HOMER roams the hospital searching for loose equipment like wheelchairs, beds, IV pumps. It identifies each unit by pinging for the RFID tags.
In the meantime a TUG can be chasing down the assets and returning them to where they will be needed or retrieving them on call.

Aethon expects that hospitals will need less equipment once they know where it all is. And HOMER and TUG will save all kinds of aggravation over lost devices.


Aethon

Aethon gets Investors

Speci-Minder

Researchers in Japan are experimenting with a robot to help surgeons get deep inside the human body without cutting it open.
The small robot is only 2 cm ong by 1 cm wide - about the size of a large cockroach. The robot is released into the body through a small opening in the skin and is moved around by a magnetic field. Doctors navigate with a map created by magnetic resonance imaging.

The robot can be outfitted with a camera, drug delivery system or tiny cutters for taking samples or minor repair jobs. Comunications with the robot are through a thin wire, which can also help recover it if it gets lost.

The research is being performed by scientists from Ritsumeikan University and the Shiga University of Medical Science. They report that they have had success in tests on aimals.


Tiny robot reduces need for surgery ::: Pink Tentacle

An article in the Minnesota Medicine Online raises the issue of when medical robots and expensive medical scanners can become too much of a good thing.

According to the article, "The complaint coming from a number of quarters is that the proliferation of high-priced technology is driving up health care costs to crippling levels with insufficient evidence of corresponding benefits to patients—and no regard at all for cost-effectiveness."

The problem is described by Former U.S. Senator David Durenberger, chair of the National Institute of Health Policy (NIHP) at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, as the "medical arms race syndrome."

The problem stems from the fact that there is really no free market in medical technology. Patients follow the advice of their doctors and their insurance pays for their medical services. That makes the doctors the actual deciding customer.
Doctors may have the incentive to recommend high tech treatments because they can have higher margins and be more attractive to patients who want the latest and greatest.

Durenburger singled out Intuitive Surgical's $1 million minimum Da Vinci robot and Accuray's $3.5 mllion CyberKnife system as examples of technology that may be over capacity for Minnesota.

They cannot say for sure that the robots are unnecessarily increasing medical costs because they have no measurements of capacity and need. But the system appears to be encouraging unchecked growth.


Minnesota Medical Association - Publications

A hospital near Willmington, Delaware has a new tireless employee dedicated to delivering critical biological samples from patients to the analysis lab.

The Speci-Minder robot - who employees have named Frances - automonously completes its rounds through the hospital to the central lab stopping along the way to collect the samples. The robot navigates down the halls and around obstacles without the need for lines on the floor or markers on the walls. It has a card-access sample compartment to control who can access the cargo.

Speci-Minder is the product of CCS Robotics. It was built on PatrolBot base made by MobileRobots Inc.


CCS Robotics - SpeciMinder™ - Secure Specimen Transporter

There are quite a few automated hospital pharmacy machines that count pills and keep track of inventory. The RIVA (Robotic IV Automation) robot made by Intelligent Hospital Systems of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada goes one step farther by automating the process of preparing syringes and IV bags.

The robot offers all the benefits that robots normally do. It can work very fast, preparing up to 100 prescribed doses an hour. It does not make mistakes like people regularly do. It is always the same, batch after batch. And the whole robot system is enclosed with its supplies in an isolated booth to prevent spillage, contamination from workers or exposure of workers to hazardous medicines.

The RIVA system has been under development for a few years and is still being tested. The first commercial unit is expected around summer 2007.

see the video at the website:
RIVA - Robotic IV Automation [ by Intelligent Hospital Systems - IH Systems ]