VIDEO - Here comes Dr. Robot

iRobot teamed up with InTouch health to recently release the RP-VITA telemedicine robot ("Remote Presence Virtual + Independent Telemedicine Assistant"). This is the most advanced product in the recent surge of robots hoping to solve the problem of too few doctors for too many geographically dispersed patients. This demo video can't help but feel painfully staged (as the robot still awaits FDA approval, it would not find its way into an actual hospital), but still gives a realistic picture of what the ideal use case would be for this type of technology. Still, I'm concerned that medicine is an art form heavily dependent on physical presence -- the sights, sounds and tactile responses of a living patient's body seem inextricably important -- but the RP-VITA provides a potentially beneficial solution for situations when a physical presence is just not possible.