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(Louisville, KY)—As the region’s leading academic medical center, UofL Health Care (which is comprised of University of Louisville’s Health Sciences Center, University of Louisville Hospital and University Physicians Associates) announced November 5, 2007 that it is creating a remote physician presence robot network, as one part of its initiative across Central and Western Kentucky. Owensboro Medical Health System (OMHS) in Owensboro, Kentucky, was announced as its first partner in the remote physician presence robot network.
UofL Health Care’s robot network will provide the highly specialized expertise and support resources of the UofL medical faculty to outlying hospitals via a remote controlled robot. The network is the first of its kind in Kentucky, and will provide quality medical care to hospitals in Central & Western Kentucky in a way that will bring together the capacity at regional hospitals and those of the University Health Sciences Center. UofL Health Care is looking to form partnerships with many other hospitals in Central and Western Kentucky in this exciting new endeavor.
The remote physician presence robot network is one aspect of the Central and Western Kentucky initiative, which is designed to extend UofL Health Care’s capacity in a cooperative and complementary fashion improving patient access to a wider range of specialists, technologies and services. The program is designed as a partnership with regional health centers that will create better diagnoses, allow patients to remain in their regions where appropriate and create a direct access to treatments in Louisville’s health care community.
The RP-7™ Robot (invented, designed & manufactured by InTouch Health, Santa Barbara, California) through the utilization of a secured wireless, broadband, internet connection, can provide physician care to patients in another location. Within moments of a request for a medical consultation, a UofL Health Care physician, seated at a computer ControlStation (either at home, office, airport terminal, or anywhere in the world that has a wireless connection) connects via the Internet to the RP-7 Robot located in the partner hospital’s Emergency Room to consult on the patient.
Through the robot (which stands 5 feet 6 inches tall), a doctor can interact and converse with a patient, patient’s family, physician or nurse through a live, two-way audio and video. Using a joystick, the camera and the guidance of 360-degree infrared sensors, the physician can maneuver the robot through the hospital to a patient’s bedside and move the robot’s head to view vital signs on monitors and charts. The physician drives the robot through remote access, and the robot is almost self sufficient; the only thing it needs assistance with is plugging in to recharge the robot’s battery.
Stroke patients will be the first to benefit from the UofL Health Care Robot Network’s ‘anytime anywhere patient care.’ Emergency Departments across Central and Western Kentucky will now be assisted by University of Louisville's nationally renowned Neurology physicians, specializing in stroke, movement disorders (including Parkinson's disease) and other subspecialties of neurology.
Through the use of the robot, UofL Health Care physicians will now be adding to the patient’s spectrum of care and supporting the partner hospitals’ existing services. Through the UofL’s Health Sciences Center, the hospitals will also have access to physicians specializing in pediatric and adult cardiology, neonatology, maternal fetal health, gastroenterology, and endocrinology, in addition to neurological care.
With a national specialized physician shortage that is often more pronounced outside metropolitan areas, UofL Health Care is poised to help provide a solution to Kentucky’s problem with an innovative solution.
Dr. Larry Cook, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, conceived the UofL Health Care Central and Western Kentucky initiative after fifteen years of developing Health Sciences Center programs that could extend capacities and services across Kentucky. When he was recently introduced to InTouch Health’s robot technology, he pursued his vision with even greater energy and dedication making UofL Health Care’s remote physician presence robot network a reality.
“Our intent is to complement the great services of our partner hospitals," said Dr. Cook. "There are many highly qualified physicians providing service in Central and Western Kentucky. This is our attempt to provide a linkage between our academic medical center in Louisville, and those hospitals and physicians in Western and Central Kentucky wishing to access services on an as-needed basis."
UofL Health Care, as an academic medical center, can also offer additional services including: adult and pediatric cardiology, neonatology, maternal fetal medicine, endocrinology and GI/hepatology.
“While of course the preference is to always have a physician to patient, face to face interaction at the bedside, this technology will help UofL Health Care physicians connect with patients without having to physically travel hundreds of miles away,” remarked University of Louisville Hospital President and CEO James Taylor. “This can provide faster access to the physician resources available at the University of Louisville.”
The expertise and resources of UofL Health Care physicians can be provided through a robot anywhere in the state—or eventually the world. It also solves the problem of being in two places at once. The physician can provide the appropriate diagnosis to a patient in another part of the state and then return to his/her patients in Louisville. This will allow University of Louisville physicians to more efficiently partner with health care providers across the state and create the best plan of treatment for patients.
“The robot is a valuable physician tool. I have found that using the robot means that patients can be accessed more quickly, which expands treatment and intervention opportunities, and eventually opens up opportunities for enrollment in national clinical trials that benefit all patients,” said Dr. Kerri S. Remmel, Director of University Hospital Stroke Center and Interim Chair of UofL’s Department of Neurology. “With stroke, time saved is brain saved. The earlier a patient is diagnosed, the earlier the best treatments can be applied,” she added.
UofL Health Care’s robot network will provide the highly specialized expertise and support resources of the UofL medical faculty to outlying hospitals via a remote controlled robot. The network is the first of its kind in Kentucky, and will provide quality medical care to hospitals in Central & Western Kentucky in a way that will bring together the capacity at regional hospitals and those of the University Health Sciences Center.
UofL Health Care is looking to form partnerships with many other hospitals in Central and Western Kentucky in this exciting new endeavor.
List of other UofL Health Care partner Hospitals:
- Owensboro Medical Health System (OMHS), Owensboro, Kentucky
- Spring View Hospital Administration, Lebanon, Kentucky
- Taylor Regional Hospital, Campbellsville, Kentucky
- Trover Health System, Madisonville, Kentucky
- TJ Samson Community Hospital, Glasgow, Kentucky
- Jennie Stuart Medical Center, Hopkinsville, Kentucky
- Hardin Memorial Hospital, Elizabethtown, Kentucky
- Pikeville Medical Center, Pikeville, Kentucky
- The Medical Center at Bowling Green, Bowling Green, Kentucky
- Western Baptist Hospital, Paducah, Kentucky
- Jackson Purchase Medical Center, Mayfield Kentucky