Healthcare of the future

By Marc Cieslak
Reporter, BBC Click

Healthcare technology can move at an incredible speed with new techniques and equipment constantly being created and refined.

The technology helping hospitals

The old cliché that we would all have personal robots and be flying around with jetpacks by the year 2000 may be a long way off, but automated assistance in the field of healthcare is already with us.

Different types of remote presence robots have been trialled at hospitals over the world since 2003. Remotely controlled, they allow doctors in any location to perform rounds and visually examine patients and their records via a video camera.

Robot surgeons

For a more hands-on - or should that be scalpel-on - approach, the Da Vinci robot is the world's most sophisticated surgical droid.

Also remote controlled, it performs precise surgical procedures. Its tools and arms dampen out tremors or movement that could occur in a human hand.

And again, because its remote controlled, the surgeon can perform the operation from any location. However, these machines could soon start operating autonomously.

Assistive or helper robots tend to look more like mobile hat stands than the Terminator

"In 2006 we actually had a case where a PC did the actual surgery," said Ian Neild, disruptive futurist at BT.

"It was not an assisted procedure. The PC in a different country operated the machines and operated on a patient in a different country. That's the first time it's ever happened."

These sort of complicated and expensive pieces of equipment are of course only found in hospitals, but more modest robotic healthcare aids could be on the way in the not too distant future.

Assistive robots

Maybe I have seen too many sci-fi movies but I always thought robots would sport a hyper alloy chassis, or at least look humanoid.

The fact is that assistive or helper robots tend to look more like mobile hat stands than the Terminator.

El-E is guided by a laser pointer

Assistive robots have been in development for decades; the problem arises in giving these robots instructions.

These kinds of machines are often designed for use by the elderly and infirm. Voice recognition software can be flaky and imprecise and typing instructions or commanding the robot via a joystick could be slow and cumbersome.

To overcome input problems, researchers at Georgia Tech's robotics lab have created the El-E robot. El-E receives instructions via a laser pointer.

The laser light hits an object, El-E's sensors recognise the light hitting an object, then, using its grabbing arm, it returns that object to its operator.

French outfit Robosoft's take on the assistive robot is based on a modular platform, which they have dubbed the Robuter.

For different applications new arms or attachments can be added. Internet connectivity allows the robot to act as a medical telepresence platform.

The Robuter is also constructed from off-the-shelf components to keep the costs down.

Pill packet data

But it is not all high-tech robots. Even the simple task of taking pills at the right time will feel the effects of new technology.

"We can actually use smart pill packets or prompts to help people taking the actual drugs," said Mr Neild.

"There are pill packets now that when you take a pill, ask you how you're feeling at that time and date. There are questions on the pill packets and you press buttons to store that.

"When that pill packet's returned to the pharmacist or the GP, they can read the data back off that pill pack and it'll tell you when they took the drugs and their responses."

While robots might seem like the stuff of science fiction, as far as healthcare is concerned in most instances there is not any substitute for the human touch.

Touch control

Philips' vision of the hospital room of the future still includes human doctors and nurses.

They have developed a hospital bed which features a scanning blanket that monitors a patient's internal organs.

A pregnancy blanket could be used to monitor a baby's health

This relays that data to an interactive screen, which also has access to a patient's medical records. Images on the screen are manipulated by touch with internal images appearing in 3D.

"We might start seeing the importance of networks and display screens," said Mr Neild.

"So the machines and sensors which are in there merge into the furniture, so you don't see them as machines on wheels - they're actually in the room."

A similar scanning technology is applied to a new pregnancy blanket.

Current ultrasound kit requires conductant gels to be applied to the mother's stomach.

The belt concept does away with gels and provides a 3D image, which can be manipulated by touch.

Previous scans can be played in to observe the progress of the foetus. These images can then be downloaded to a portable player and used to embarrass the offspring in years to come.

At the moment these technologies exist only as concepts, although all of these ideas are theoretically feasible.