Studies Find Value In Remote Robotic Imaging
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
Two studies from Mt. Sinai Hospital have found using robots offers patient friendly imaging from virtually anywhere.
Doctors from Mt. Sinai Hospital used robotic technology to perform an ultrasound on a patient who was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. According to mHealth News, Partho Sengupta, MD, directed a robotic arm with built-in ultrasound technology while in Germany to examine the carotid artery of a patient in Boston. The procedure was performed on Sengupta’s personal computer with low-bandwidth internet and only took four minutes, says Healthcare IT News.
"Our first-in-man experiment shows long-distance, telerobotic ultrasound examinations over standard internet are possible," says Dr. Sengupta, who is Director of Cardiac Ultrasound Research at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Chair of the New Technology Task Force at the American Society of Echocardiography. "Our successful experiment opens up a new frontier for the use of remote, robotic ultrasound imaging that could potentially be more efficient and cost-effective overall for healthcare access and delivery."
The second study was conducted by Kurt Boman, MD, of Umeå University in Sweden in collaboration with Mount Sinai. This combined a cardiologist’s video e-consultation with a remote robot-assisted echocardiogram test. Results showed a dramatic reduction in the waiting time for a diagnosis for heart failure patients who live in a rural communities far from the hospital from 114 days to only 27.
"The two studies give us a glimpse of what to expect in the near future, a patient-friendly imaging technology at your doorstep," says Jagat Narula, MD, PhD, the senior author of both research studies who serves as the Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Center and Associate Dean of Global Research at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in a press release.
Mt. Sinai researchers say this type of on-demand virtual robot ultrasound could be used effectively in locations from hospital emergency rooms and community screenings to warzones.
"In clinical medicine, the use of more portable low-cost, safe, non-radiation using ultrasound imaging technology is growing for diagnosis, patient monitoring, and procedural, and surgical planning," says Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). "The technology may be key to accelerating greater local and global healthcare access more efficiently and cost-effectively for patients, doctors, communities, and hospitals in need."