Hospitals increasingly are relying on innovative new technologies to improve patient care, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Using Robots
For example, some hospitals are using robots to enable telehealth consultations between physicians and patients.
Paul Vespa, a neurological care specialist at the University of California-Los Angeles, uses a robot stand-in developed by InTouch Health to examine patients in different locations.
The robot enables Vespa to:
Check patients’ vital signs;
Communicate with patients;
Keep in touch with patients’ family members; and
Observe patients’ symptoms.
Using Other New Technologies
Other innovative technologies used by hospitals include:
Digital assistants such as IBM’s Watson computer system, which can hold large amounts of medical literature and provide complex health advice;
Electronic identification tags that can track staff members’ hand-washing habits; and
A program similar to Twitter that allows health care providers to receive updates on patients’ health condition (Dance, Los Angeles Times, 9/13).
