Michigan hospitals to have robot on call

October 19th, 2006 in Electronics / Robotics
Michigan hospitals to have robot on call (AP)

Neurosurgeon Richard Fesler is shown on the monitor of the RP-7 remote presence robotic system at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, Mich., Monday, Oct. 9, 2006. A new program, dubbed the Michigan Stroke Network scheduled to be unveiled Thursday, Oct. 19, will make the Pontiac hospital's specialists available around the clock to any hospital in the state that joins. The on-call specialist will use a laptop and the Internet to connect to a robot in the participating hospital to join the attending physician at the patient's bedside. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

(AP) -- When a patient arrives at an emergency room with symptoms of a stroke, doctors must act fast. But the crucial decisions that can prevent death or severe disability are harder to make without a neurologist, and not every hospital has one on call.

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