Health Care "Telepresence Robot" to aid high dependency care at Northern Ireland Hospital

A Northern Ireland Health Trust is the first in the UK to use a robot which allows intensive care specialists from one hospital to remotely assess patients in another.

The 'telepresence' robot enables doctors to examine and interact with patients in different locations.

It will be used at Daisy Hill Hospital in County Down.

Stormont Health Minister Edwin Poots said the new technology would create an "effective hospital network".

The robot has the ability to transmit heart and breath sounds and it is hoped it will prevent the need to transfer patients to intensive care in some cases.

It enables Dr Charles McAllister, based at Craigavon Area Hospital in County Armagh, to speak to staff and patients at a bedside in the Southern Trust in Newry more than 20 miles away.

"It means that although there are no intensivists on site in Daisy Hill Hospital, it means there will be 24/7 access to the intensivists on the Craigavon site to give advice and support on any patients in a high dependency unit or throughout the hospital," he said.

"You can get a huge amount of information via the robot.

"You can get real time information from the monitor, you can see the patient up close in high definition and look at all the charts and observations.

"There is also a facility for listening to the patient's lungs and heart through a stethoscope at the back of the robot."

More about "Telepresence" and robots, here.