(Louisville-Lebanon, KY)-Just 24 hours after the announcement of its launch of the remote physician presence robot network in Central and Western Kentucky, UofL Health Care signed up another regional hospital in the network.  On Tuesday, November 6, Spring View Hospital Administration (Lebanon, Kentucky) decided to add the specialized resources of 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), to their existing line of patient services.

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, which will improve 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-7T 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 Spring View 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.

Spring View Hospital stroke patients will be the first to benefit from the UofL Health Care Robot – Spring View Hospital partnership.

Spring View’s Emergency Department 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.

“Spring View Hospital is committed to providing the best health care to our patients.  Being able to offer the community the highly specialized resources of UofL Health Care physicians was an easy decision to make,” said Ron Tyrer, Interim CEO at Spring View Hospital.

Spring View is a 75-bed acute care facility serving the people of Marion County. Lebanon is just 66 miles away from Louisville.  While distance wise that might not seem that far, for a stroke patient it can mean the difference between recovery and debilitation.

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 Spring View Hospital and others,” 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 to Spring View and other hospitals, including: adult and pediatric cardiology, neonatology, maternal fetal medicine, endocrinology and GI/Hepatology.

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 Lebanon 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.

On Monday, November 5, 2007, UofL Health Care and Owensboro Medical Health System announced that OMHS was the first Kentucky health care organization to partner with UofL Health Care in this exciting new frontier of medicine.  UofL Health Care is looking to form partnerships with many other hospitals in Central and Western Kentucky in this exciting new endeavor, and Spring View Hospital is just the latest to sign up.

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