Medical Miracle Robots

Meet 55-year-old Stan D. Artman. Stan has been in multiple car accidents, suffered from countless heart attacks and undergone hundreds of surgeries throughout his lifetime. As if this isn't enough for one man to endure, Stan has also been the victim of innumerable misdiagnoses and surgical mistakes at the hands of young, inexperienced doctors.

Surprisingly enough, he doesn't mind too much. That's because Stan, affectionately known as "Standard Man," is a high-tech robot used as a training tool for health-care students and medical professionals. He's is one of several state-of-the-art simulation systems currently used at the University of California Davis School of Medicine's Center for Virtual Care in Sacramento, California.

Solutions

The Institute of Medicine has estimated that nearly 98,000 patients die each year in the United States due to medical mistakes. As a result, medical industry leaders have realized that rising health-care professionals should train with realistic simulators before working on human patients. After all, it's much better for rookie doctors and nurses to make a mistake on a computerized mannequin than on an actual person.

That's why these technologically advanced robots are becoming increasingly popular at health-care training facilities and schools throughout the country. These incredible simulators can produce realistic heart rates, breathe, bleed and even urinate.

High-Tech Help

Kaiser Permanente uses a pregnant robot named Noelle as a training device in most of their 30 American hospitals. As part of Kaiser's pregnancy-care training program, Noelle realistically simulates an actual birth.

Created by Gaumard Scientific, Noelle can have pregnancy complications, such as a breach delivery or an unexpected early birth. At any point during the labor, a Gaumard engineer can send wireless signals from a laptop to Noelle to create new complications.

Noelle eventually gives birth to a plastic baby simulator that can also display realistic health problems. It can change colors from a healthy pink to a deep blue that points to oxygen deficiency.

These innovative robots aren't just being used in hospitals for health-care training. The U.S. Army has also incorporated the groundbreaking simulators into its training programs. Military medics and emergency medical technicians train with the Human Patient Simulator (HPS) from Medical Education Technologies Inc.

Originally developed by the University of Florida College of Medicine to train anesthesiologists, the HPS displays dilating pupils, breathing, clear pulse rates and realistic reactions to medication. Approximately 150 of these revolutionary simulators are used in various military training centers across the nation.

There's a strong possibility that extraordinary simulators like Stan and Noelle have already saved thousands of lives throughout the country. Because they reduce the risk of new medical professionals encountering an unusual situation with human patients, the medical industry is certain to add even more of these impressive robots to their training programs.

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