RP-VITA, Dr. Roboto - Remote Control Telepresence Healthcare

Intouch Health, a company founded in 2002, provides remote presence solutions for health care, in the form of robots.

The latest robot developed by Intouch Health is RP Vita. It has environmental awareness that allows it to move around a hospital without bumping into people or things. The doctor controls the robot through the use of an iPad by pointing to where it should go. The patient sees the doctor's head displayed on a screen perched on the top of the robot, as depicted in the picture below:

It sounds a bit strange, but these robots are in many hospitals, and are useful in rural areas where there are few medical specialists.  

The presentation below explains the key points of the use of tele-robotics in medicine:

RP-VITA: A Glimpse at the Future of Healthcare Delivered Today: WIRED Health Conference, 10/16/12
Yulun Wang: Meet Dr. Roboto, Your New Bedside Caregiver from WIRED on FORA.tv

The Visual Autopsy Table : Interactive Health Science

Interactive Virtual Autopsy Table


The Virtual Autopsy Table from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.


Virtual Autopsies from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.




How it works: Information from a true case, from the Virtual Autopsy Table website.

"A living patient was treated for cerebral hemorrhaging. X-rays sent through the body during computed tomography grow weaker according to the density of the tissue through which they pass. By assigning density values with varying degrees of transparency and identifying colors, a sort of palette can be created by the computer to use in the imaging process. It becomes possible, for example, to remove clothing, skin or blood vessels. In this case the patient has been operated for a ruptured aneurysm in a small brain vessel. A metal clips has been added that can be seen in the image.
"

RELATED

The Norrkopings Visualization Center
"The installation is financed within the framework of the Visualization program and developed by Norrköping Vi sualization Center in cooperation with CMIV (Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization)."

Multi-touch App for Pediatric Neuropsych Assessment and Rehab

Microsoft Surface Multi-touch Application for Pediatric Neuropsychological Assessment and Rehab, by Vectorform

Above is a link to my TechPsych post about the Cook Children's Health Care System's use of multi-touch technology for children and teens who have suffered traumatic brain injuries or have other significant neurological disorders.

ElderGadget Blog

Via Technology-Supported Human World Interaction

Today I came across the ElderGadget Blog when I was searching for technology that might be helpful to my father, who recently spent the last few weeks in an intensive care unit.

Here are a few things I found on the blog, including what I found when I followed a link to the bindependent website:

Smart Table: A Broadband Communication System for the Elderly


ID Studiolab, Delft University of Technology, NL
"The smart system is aimed to prevent possible social isolation between elderly people and their social contacts. It consists of the Smart Table and the Smart Messenger, which provide easy and intuitive way for elderly people to benefit from the advantage of communication technology and improve the satisfaction of their social activities."

"During the design research, a working prototype is made and evaluated by a user test. The Smart Table offers people a way to use broadband communication without the need for a computer. The television will be used for video communication (web-cam) and the table as user-interface. On the table contact persons can be selected and images and video can be shared. The elderly person can capture images that will be shared instantly. The contact person can select images from his or her computer, which will be projected on the table of the elderly person". (TU Delft - Faculty Industrial Design Engineering - Master Design for Interaction - Project Interactive Technology Design - Vincent Steurs & Juin-Yi Huang)


Demy Kitchen Safe Touchscreen Reader



Photo Watch


Clarity-C900: Amplified Big Button Cell Phone

911 Guardian: "Tiny wearable speakerphone"


Extra Large TV Remote Control

SmartShopper: Electronic grocery-list maker



Bierley's ColorMouse Video Magnifier

Voice Pod: Digital recording and playback system

RELATED

Live from CES - Dakim's Brain Fitness Keeps Seniors Sharp

Dakim Brain Games

Previous post: Ubiquitous Computing - Grandpa and grandkids use a webcam and Skype across the miles

YouTube Vlogger: Geriatric1927

Geriatric Gripes and Grumbles

Interactive Multimedia and Multi-touch at CES

I received couple of interesting links about interactive multimedia applications from Anthony Uhrick, of NextWindow, who is attending CES (Consumer Electronics Show). (NextWindow is the company who produces large touch-screen displays that have duo and multi-touch capabilities.)

Kevin Kennedy and his team at InterKnowlogy partnered with Zygote 3D Human Anatomy and Intermountain Health Care to develop a health care application developed in Windows Presentation Foundation to run on Microsoft's multi-touch Surface computing table.

The application supports collaboration between health care professionals and could also support collaboration between patients and doctors as well. Aspects of the application could be useful for patient education.

I really liked the part that demonstrates how you can zoom deeply into the 3D heart and look at things from various angles.


http://silverlight.interknowlogy.com/Videos/VitruView/default.html

Best of InterKnowlogy Surface:



The above video demos an application that might be useful for teaching history with an interesting timeline interface dial.

Visit InterKnowlogy for more videos and information about what they are doing with Windows Presentation & Silverlight as partners with Microsoft's Surface team.

If you are interested in more 3D anatomy, visit Zygote's 3D Human Anatomy site and 3D Science. If you are an educator, you'll see that 3D interaction has potential for creating more engaging science and health education lessons!

Another interesting link is to TouchTV Networks, which has partnered with companies such as Vectorform, who are also working with multi-touch applications using Windows Presentation Foundation.

Video from TouchTV Networks of CES 2009 Demo:


Vectorform's Virtual Drum Kit application:


Vectorform's Surface at School - demonstrates how this can be used in a classroom:


Vectorform's Surface DJ


Does anyone want to give me a multi-touch table?

Surface Computing, Health, and Hands-on Science Education

"....from the first time I saw surface in Andy Wilson's lab at Microsoft Research, I knew it had healthcare written all over it. It has taken some time to bring together the right developers and partners to apply Surface technology in health, but we are finally there." -Bill Crounse, MD, Microsoft HealthBlog

As I've previously suggested, surface computing would be useful in education K-12 settings. One look at the graphics posted below at a demonstration about Microsoft Surface in Health.

We know that one of the challenges in our public schools is to to encourage more students to take STEM-related courses. (If you are not familiar with the acronym, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.) One look at the hands-on graphics below might convince reluctant students to sign up for class!






















The video of the 3D interactive heart simulation can be found at the bottom of the following post:

Microsoft Health Blog

About: Ubiquitous Computing- Grandpa and grandkids use a webcam and Skype across the miles; "EMR: The Movie".

A close relative was recently in the hospital that offered free WiFi. The youngest grandchild, my niece, brought out her flute and played Grandpa a tune.



The instant access to the Internet made it possible to quickly look up medical information as the doctors spoke, which made it easier to ask informed questions later on.

To make the time go faster during the 9 hour wait in the emergency room, YouTube comedy clips from old Johnny Carson shows really helped. All of the laughing during an otherwise somber situation caused a bit of a stir among the medical staff, other patients, and their families.

Why not put a few Wi-Fi enabled displays around the emergency room?

A new hospital near Grand Rapids, Michigan, has taken this concept a step further. The hospital will be offer patients Internet access from wide-screen displays in their rooms:

"Each room is private, with windows, and offers a foldout couch for overnight guests, individual temperature and lighting adjustments and a 37-inch TV screen that can show any of 30 recently released movies. The video component also provides Internet access and a portal to view a person's electronically stored medical records, even results from tests taken just the day before."

UPDATE (3/29/09)
Information about the hospital, Metro Health:
"Just what the doctor ordered": Metro Health puts video over IP network to educate and entertain its patients

"Because the entertainment system is IP based, Optimal installers were able to connect it to the hospital’s HL7 network, a nationally accepted protocol that allows health systems to talk to each other. By connecting the IP network to the HL7, the system can access all patient records, entertainment, educational videos, even admissions information."

Coincidentally, I found this link in one of my "Google Alerts" messages about electronic medical records, titled "EMR: The Movie".

The author of the post discussed how EMR - Electronic Medical Records - have the potential of providing a snapshot of the patient's medical history. He went on to muse about how EMR should be depicted as a movie- which I think is a good idea.

At least the record system should use a combination of text, icons, video-clips, and interactive 3D medical imaging. Of course, this would have to be displayed on a touch screen display such as a NextWindow Human Touch or Microsoft Surface.....