Calgary Robot Surprises Pediatric Patients At Nebraska Medicine

By Guest Author, Kyle Hall, Telehealth Coordinator, Nebraska Medicine

When we discovered that one of our technology providers, Calgary Scientific, had a DoubleRobotics robot just like ours, we hatched an idea. In my role as telehealth coordinator, I am always looking for ways to connect people over distances with technology. With the two Doubles, one in Omaha and the other in Canada, I saw an opportunity to bring some fun via telepresence to our bravest patients, the kids on the pediatric oncology ward.

As Nebraska Medicine’s Kenneth Cowan MD, PhD has noted, “Healing requires more than just treating the patient medically.” This is particularly true for our youngest patients. “Laughter and play are part of the healing process for our pediatric patients,” says Lisa Wallace-Spech, one of our child life specialists. We knew that using telepresence, we could bring a lot of that laughter and play to our patients.

Telepresence takes video-based telecommunications and puts it on wheels allowing an individual to be “present” in a remote location. The Double, which is a motorized mount for an iPad that can be controlled remotely from another iPad, looks a little like a disembodied head on a stick with wheels. The display on the Double shows the face of remote “driver,” giving him or her a virtual presence wherever the Double is located. Anyone interacting with the Double sees and hears the remote drive, and the driver sees what the Double is “looking” at. It’s like Facetime, but instead of a person holding a phone on the other end there’s a robot you control.

With Calgary Scientific’s participation, we pulled off a great event. First, to make the robot look more “human,” we dressed it in a cowboy hat, bandana and one of the many white lab coats hanging around and then named him Dr. Double. Dr. Double was driven from room to room by the team in Canada, meeting and conversing with every patient.

The video of the event shows a lot of smiles and excitement but we did have one shy customer. We could see that she wasn’t feeling a hundred percent and was reluctant to participate, so we pulled out the secret weapon. Up comes Buddy and Roxy, a lab and a Jack Russell terrier belonging to the Canadian team, and her face lit up with a tremendous smile. That was a moment that we will all never forget.

While some kids were talking with Dr. Double in Nebraska, others were taking Developer Double in Canada for a test drive. Using my iPad, cancer patient Tanner Haberman took Developer Double for a spin around the company’s offices, catching glimpses of the team and their dogs, and tried to chase the dogs down.

“It was great fun, but I couldn’t catch the dogs,” Haberman commented.

Haberman, who was declared officially cancer-free this July, is the oldest of nine brothers and sisters. His small hometown of Emerson, population 800, is about two hours from Omaha where Nebraska Medicine is located. When asked if he might have liked something like Dr. Double to have a presence at home while he was in the hospital for treatments, he responded, “Yeah, that might be good.”

His situation is a good example of how telepresence can play an interesting role in healthcare by connecting patients not only to providers but to their families as well. For the Habermans, telepresence might have helped fill the hole that everyone felt when their biggest brother was gone. As mom Janelle Haberman put it in an interview earlier this year, “The balance is off. It’s always tilted knowing that one is gone.”

“The opportunities to use technology like this are limitless,” says Lisa Wallace-Spech, our child life specialist. “It challenges us to think of different ways we can engage kids. Some of our kids are in isolation and this provides the opportunity to bring the world to them. We’re talking about pre-op tours so the kids will know what to expect before procedures. Or maybe we can just have fun and do a scavenger hunt that also helps familiarize the kids with the hospital.”

After seeing Dr. Double in action, co-workers, patients, families and friends have approached me with an abundance of additional creative uses for telepresence. There’s no shortage of great ideas and we can’t wait to explore them all.

Learn more about the event(http://www.calgaryscientific.com/news/calgary-robot-makes-rounds-at-nebraska-medicine)

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