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Finally!  A rational solution to the healthcare crisis is here.  We have cried about lowering reimbursements, fumed about payoffs to doctors by device manufacturers, and lamented the insanity that is health insurance.  Now we can eliminate that problem and also save primary care in the process.

The solution?

Meet your new doctor.

Hot news out today:

Robot Lets Specialists Remotely Treat Patients in Rural Kentucky

Specialists at University of Louisville Health Care on Thursday began using a robot to remotely treat patients at Owensboro Medical Health System in western Kentucky, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
Specialists in areas such as neurology, cardiology and maternal-fetal medicine can use InTouch Technologies’ RP-7 robot to consult with patients, observe vital signs on monitors and check heart rates, blood pressure readings or sonograms. The specialists in Louisville control the system using laptops and joysticks and receive help from doctors or nurses in Owensboro.

The robot system is the first in the state and one of about 130 being used worldwide, the Courier-Journal reports. University of Louisville Health Care officials did not disclose how much they paid for the system, but InTouch officials said each control station costs $2,500 and robots can be leased for five years for $5,000 per month.

Officials said the robot system could help counter Kentucky’s physician shortage, specifically in rural areas. While 43% of the state’s population lives in rural areas, just 23% of physicians practice in rural areas, according to the Courier-Journal. In addition, most medical experts and specialists practice in urban areas like Louisville and Lexington.

Officials said they want to eventually expand the technology to other parts of western and central Kentucky (Ungar, Louisville Courier-Journal, 11/6).

I think this is a really cool idea.  Just replace us with robots!  If you look at the lease rates, it really is affordable – especially when they have “double dollar days” at the robot dealership.  At this rate, the pay is actually even less than you pay a midlevel provider ($60,000 per year), plus you don’t have to worry about benefits, vacations, sickness, or even CME.

The downside is that you have to have real physicians at the other end controlling the joy sticks.  This reduces the overall efficiency of the process and really cuts into the cost savings of having an independent robot doctor.  Dealing with cranky human doctors is just a nuisance that we should not have to deal with.

So here is my solution.  Train a bunch of Grade School kids on Trauma Center: Second Opinion for the Nintendo Wii.  Then they can control the robots remotely.  This is a great idea because kids are far better at this kind of thing than are adults.  My kids can cream me at driving games, even though I am a better driver in real life than they are.  They can transform into a wolf and get enough jewels to  open a magic trunk better than I can, but in real life I am far better at doing this.  They can get their Bulbasaur to successfully defeat someone with a high-level Toxicroak using a vine whip attack, when…well, they are actually better at that in real life than I am.  I was never good at the vine whip.

My point is, kids can learn to play games and do things like being a doctor far better than I can if you just have them do it on a video game.  Why not teach them to diagnose otitis media and shoot it with the antibiotic gun?  Why not teach them to lower blood pressure through titration of an angiotensin receptor blocker?  I think they would be thrilled.  Plus, you have an unending supply of kids to play this game, while primary care physicians are in crisis; and the kids’ only demands will be enough “Fruit By the Foot.”

Here are some suggestions for additional features to make the robots more life-like:

• Make the dermatology robots only work 4 days a week and stop functioning after 4.
• Make surgery robots be bossy and domineering – throwing objects such as retractors, forceps, and small children across the operating room.
• Make Emergency medicine robots with very short attention spans and the ability to order 20,000 tests simultaneously.
• Make internal medicine robots very brainy and awkward socially.  They must do a work-up for pheochromocytoma on every 20th patient.
• Make pediatric robots bright and colorful with sticker-dispensers on the outside.  They must be urine and snot resistant.  These robots are housed in very small containers.
• Make orthopedic robots big and brawny, but give them absolutely no knowledge of other aspects of medicine.  Make “consult medicine for management” be hardwired into their circuits.  These robots live in very large containers.
• OB/GYN robots must have a robust motherboard.  They must work at any hour of the night and should not have a sense of smell.
• Family practice robots should be made obsolete and replaced with many tiny Physician Extender robots.
• Pathology robots should be afraid of living humans and only communicate with other robots if there is no other choice.
• Hospital administrator robots should go to meetings all day and keep the other robots at lowest efficiency possible.  They should also fire as many nurse robots as possible.
• Insurance company CEO robots should be parasitic and suck all of the electricity out of other robots.  They should produce huge piles of paper that bury all of the other robots.
• Malpractice Attorney robots should all be immediately destroyed.

I am so excited about what the future can bring.  We truly live in the dawn of a wonderful new age where we can devote our time to far better things than helping other humans, such as learning how to do a vine-whip.

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