More medical robots entering the ring

• The eastern Iowa Mercy Medical Center hospital is the first in the US to install an I-V Station Onco robot for  mixing and administering chemotherapy drugs. The robot is produced by Health Robotics that has "80% of total IV robots market share in the world [including over 90% the Oncology Robots global market]. Health Robotics is the undisputed leading supplier of life-critical intravenous medication robots, providing over 300 hospital installations in 5 continents with the only fully-integrated robotics-based technology, IV Workflow, and manual compounding software automation solution. Health Robotics’ second generation solutions [i.v.STATION, i.v.SOFT, and i.v.STATION ONCO] have been found to greatly contribute to ease hospitals’ growing pressures to improve patient safety, increase throughput, and contain costs. The technology has no recorded medical errors within the organizations across Europe and elsewhere that already use it."

• GE Global Research is developing a robot that can sort, sterilize, and prep surgical tools automatically, minimizing mistakes and freeing skilled hospital personnel for other less-tedious jobs. GE researches are already using prototypes for hospital sterile processing . "Technologists at GE Global Research, working with the U.S. Veteran's Administration, are starting to build a robotic automation system to assist with handling, placement, accounting, and sterilization of surgical tools and kits. As part of the two-year $2.5 million project, the designers will evaluate the system at a VA hospital."

• Our ACMIT center has also created a prototype system for bin-picking tasks in the sterile environment.

Source: Txchnologist, Radio Iowa