Qualcomm is helping to expand the reach and clinical effectiveness of physicians using the InTouch Health, RP-7 robot for trauma care.

 

For this, Qualcomm (News - Alert) is leveraging its Wireless Reach initiative, and also collaborating with partners including the William Lehman Injury Research Center (WLIRC); the U.S. Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC); the Army Trauma Training Center (ATTC); and the American Telemedicine Association (ATA).

 

According to Qualcomm officials, WLIRC and the U.S. Army's Trauma Training Center, co-located at Ryder, have been working closely for to study the feasibility of using the robot to support trauma care.

 

Noting that there is a shortage of specialized trauma physicians, Jonathan Linkous, executive director of ATA explained that the use of the robot and wireless broadband technology represents a potential expansion of care worldwide. He believes this research at Ryder Trauma Center will help determine the possibilities of these technologies.

 

As part of this effort, the WLIRC will receive an RP-7 robot and laptops with EV-DO Rev. A wireless cards for enhanced broadband connectivity. The laptops will help the surgeons to connect to the robot wherever 3G wireless broadband is available.

 

This collaboration will allow specialty physicians who are working from a remote location to use the RP-7 robot to actively participate in the delivery of care in the Resuscitation Unit, Operating Rooms and Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This technological breakthrough will allow the surgeons to autonomously drive the robot to patients’ bedsides using controls on the laptops from their homes, offices or virtually anywhere.

 

Once these machines have reached the patients’ bedsides the can perform a number of functions such as offering consultation during an emergency, monitor patients and train nurses and residents. By leveraging the robot’s two-way audio-video capabilities, the doctors will be able to check vitals, zoom in on the patient and provide advice to attending doctors, nurses or clinicians.

 

If doctors can instantly connect to the ICU through high-speed wireless technology they can help reduce the preventable death rate by speeding up the delivery of trauma care during the critical 60 minutes after an injury, noted Jeffrey S. Augenstein, M.D, Ph.D., director of the William Lehman Injury Research Center and principal investigator on the project.