Guest post by Jeff Goldsmith, vice president of marketing, Revolve Robotics.
We will never return to the days of house calls and family doctors who knew you from birth. However, thanks to advances in mobile and digital technology we are well on our way to a new golden age in medicine, one that will offer near instant access to electronically delivered healthcare from humans, anywhere, any time. The groundwork has already been set – there have been more than one billion tablets produced by the tech industry (one for every seven humans), so we certainly have enough screens to get a caregiver’s face in front of every patient.
So, what’s the next step? An understanding and commitment to using this technology to give everyone access to care, whether they are an aging boomer, someone living in a rural area without enough specialists, or a very sick kid who can’t travel because of their treatment regime.
This isn’t science fiction – robotic technology and tablets are already being combined in schools, in homes and in hospitals to better patient experiences. For example, a public elementary school in Round Rock, Texas recently accommodated a student receiving chemo in Philadelphia by using a telepresence robot to put her back “in” the classroom. The technology allowed her to look around the room, interact with fellow students and ask questions as if she were there in person – all for under $1,000.
The ROI of this type of set-up for schools is impossible to calculate nationwide, but the benefits are massive. Not only does the child benefit, so do their classmates who learn about inclusion, the school which evolves its technology, and the community because it gains one more educated human being. More than 40,000 children undergo treatment for cancer each year in the US – imagine giving each of them this opportunity.