Pregnant robot delivers baby and trains students.
Noelle is a pregnant robot at John Hopkins University. She is a life-like, birth-giving simulation tool, being used to train medical students. With this robot high riks situations can be simulated and obviously it's better that mistakes are made on a robot than on a real human.
Noelle's given birth in Afghanistan, California and dozens of points in between.
The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, estimates that as many as 98,000 U.S. patients die annually from preventable medical errors.
The blonde robot is in demand as it is providing hands on practice on pregnancy, than the conventional methods which included patients as guinea pigs. It is a modern world simulator which is saving lives and giving more real experiences to medical students.
It costs about $20,000 which is of course not expensive than a life.
"We're trying to engineer out some of the errors," said Dr. Paul Preston, an anesthesiologist at Kaiser Permanente and architect of the hospital chain's 4-year-old pregnancy-care training program, in which Noelle plays a starring role. "We steal shamelessly from everybody and everywhere that has good training programs."
Architecture of Noelle Robot
Other companies make lifelike mannequins to train paramedics in emergencies, but Noelle appears to be the only high-tech, pregnant model available.
Noelle models range from a $3,200 basic version to a $20,000 computerized Noelle that best approximates a live birth.
She can be programmed for a variety of complications and for cervix dilation. She can labor for hours and produce a breach baby or unexpectedly give birth in a matter of minutes.
She ultimately delivers a plastic doll that can change colors, from a healthy pink glow to the deadly blue of oxygen deficiency. The baby mannequin is wired to flash vital signs when hooked up to monitors.
The computerized mannequins emit realistic pulse rates and can urinate and breathe.
"If she is bleeding, there will be ample blood in evidence everywhere," Preston said one rainy day recently as he put Noelle through her paces at Kaiser Permanente's Vallejo hospital.
About 50 doctors, nurses and others involved in caring for pregnant women attended the training session, which started with Noelle hooked up to standard delivery monitoring machines and tended to by nurses and doctors.
Noelle can be controlled by wireless and performs instructions according to programmed instructions with a keystroke.
Susan Will, OB Patient nursery nurse, adds to this that actually the most important aspect to be learned from this robot is team communication. By filming an emergency birth and re-watch it on tape, the team learns a lot.
Susan Will, OB Patient nursery nurse, adds to this that actually the most important aspect to be learned from this robot is team communication. By filming an emergency birth and re-watch it on tape, the team learns a lot.
Video featuring the birth from a robotic mother.
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