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Radiologists are investigating people’s medical conditions and pregnancies remotely thanks to an ESA-backed robotic technology.
The set-up enables medics to care for some patients at a distance during the coronavirus pandemic.
The system is already being used by rural hospitals, care homes and prisons across Europe and in Canada to investigate cardiac, abdominal, pelvic and urinary tract conditions.
It could also be used as an alternative to chest X-rays to diagnose pneumonia in patients infected by COVID-19, relieving the pressure on hospital facilities.
Patients visit a local health centre, where a healthcare professional with no ultrasound training positions a robotic arm on the patient.
A trained radiologist, cardiologist or midwife, based many kilometres away, then manipulates a local dummy probe to move the robotic arm. The expert can alter the settings of the ultrasound machine remotely to get the best possible images.
The ultrasound image is displayed on a screen in real time and a videoconferencing system allows them to speak to the patient.
“This tool makes sense in the face of the challenge for combating the COVID-19 virus by allowing equipped places to establish additional barriers to its spread,” says Eric Lefebvre, who founded the French firm AdEchoTech that developed the Melody ultrasound system…
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