WEB DESK, July 15(ABC): During the current coronavirus pandemic, one of the riskiest parts of a health care worker’s job is assessing people who have symptoms of Covid-19. Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital hope to reduce that risk by using robots to remotely measure patients’ vital signs.
The robots, which are controlled by a handheld device, can also carry a tablet that allows doctors to ask patients about their symptoms without being in the same room.
“In robotics, one of our goals is to use automation and robotic technology to remove people from dangerous jobs,” says Henwei Huang, an MIT postdoc. “We thought it should be possible for us to use a robot to remove the health care worker from the risk of directly exposing themselves to the patient.”
Using four cameras mounted on a dog-like robot developed by Boston Dynamics, the researchers have shown that they can measure skin temperature, breathing rate, pulse rate, and blood oxygen saturation in healthy patients, from a distance of 2 meters. They are now making plans to test it in patients with Covid-19 symptoms.
“We are thrilled to have forged this industry-academia partnership in which scientists with engineering and robotics expertise worked with clinical teams at the hospital to bring sophisticated technologies to the bedside,” says Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the senior author of the study.
The researchers have posted a paper on their system on the preprint server techRxiv, and have submitted it to a peer-reviewed journal. Huang is one of the lead authors of the study, along with Peter Chai, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Claas Ehmke, a visiting scholar from ETH Zurich.