As Chinese cities grapple with explosive industrial growth, they also grapple with the side effects, like millions of citizens with pollution-related ills. At Chengdu No. 7 People’s Hospital, those patients are a common sight—and now, the hospital has opened a dedicated "smog clinic" to treat them.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control, one out of every 20 patients would be on the receiving end of an infection whenever they stay at the hospital. That sounds like a pretty high chance – 5%, to be exact. Well, for a certain hospital over in Fort Worth, the hospital intends to fight this particular issue with an ultraviolet light machine which resembles a droid from the world of science fiction. Over at the Texas Health Resources Southwest Fort Worth, a robot known as Xenex will move around operating rooms on its routine, sending out ultraviolet light in order to kill potentially dangerous microbes.
Kathy Rhodes, the infection prevention co-ordinator, shared, “We put this in the room, close the door and it gives a pulsated ultraviolet light that actually essentially ruptures the bacteria and viruses and kills them on the spot.” The Xenex robot was purchased over a year ago where it came with a $82,000 price tag. The Xenex robot stands at 3 feet in height, where it will raise its round head for approximately two feet as it turns its head 360 degrees while emitting the pulses of UV light, performing what is known as environmental cleaning. Do you think that all hospitals should employ such robots to get the job done?
Xenex Robot Does Its Rounds At The Hospital original content from Ubergizmo. 
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It can be scary to get a CT scan, whether you are an adult or a kid. God only knows what that radiation is doing to you. What if you end up like the Hulk? To ease the fears of children who need to endure a trip through the machine, New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital is one place to go.
They are one of the largest children’s hospitals in the country and so they felt it was up to them to make sure they were administering the lowest doses of radiation possible to the kids, so they picked up one of GE’s Adventure Series CT scanners – this one in a pirate theme. (They also make jungle, underwater, summer camp and space themed scanners.)
In addition to the scanner, the entire scanning suite is pirate-themed. Arrrr! Let’s all do it. Free scans on me! Wait. How much? Okay, everybody just enjoy the images. On me.
[via BuzzFeed via Nerd Approved]
If you have a fear or intense dislike for hospitals, then chances are you won’t appreciate the quirkiness behind the concept of the Hospitalis Restaurant, which is a hospital-themed restaurant.
From the decor to the actual food, the entire place just screams “creepy hospital!”
The inside of the restaurant is decorated in red and white, characteristic of most hospitals. The tables look like surgical tables you’ll find in the operating room, while the utensils resemble surgical instruments. The food itself looks like a bunch of chopped up and disjointed body parts (eww!) and the drinks are served in IV bags and flasks.
The most outrageous thing about the restaurant, though, is the option of allowing their diners to eat in a straitjacket. Since they won’t have use of their limbs anymore, waitresses in nurses’ outfits are more than happy to feed them their meal by the spoonful.
The Hospitalis Restaurant is located in Latvia, so if you ever find yourself there, maybe you can check it out and share your experience – assuming you can escape the straitjacket.
[via Foodbeast]
Cancer sucks. There’s no cure (yet) – only prevention – and no one’s exempt from either getting it now or in the future. Every year, men and women, young and old, fall ill to the dreaded Big ‘C’. It’s a painful and difficult process for everyone, but probably more so for kids who might not completely understand what’s happening.
So to make things better, even just a little bit, the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center in São Paulo, Brazil teamed up with Warner Bros. to give their children’s cancer center a new look.
The theme? Superheroes. Chemotherapy has been rebranded as ‘superformula’ to fight against one of the biggest villains against humanity. IV bags are tucked into colorful Justice League-themed boxes to make them look cooler, and special comic books are handed out depicting how Justice League characters lost but then gained their powers after undergoing similar treatments as the young patients.
(The) experience went far beyond the covers by also providing a new look to the entire Children’s Ward: the game room was turned into the Hall of Justice, corridors and doors were decorated in the same theme, and the exterior acquired an exclusive entrance for these little heroes… As any good cancer doctor will tell you, the most important step in fighting the disease is believing in a cure.
Belief breeds hope, and hope breeds strength. With a fighting spirit, cancer can be beaten, just like every other villain out there.
[via Geekologie]
We’ve already seen the RP-VITA in action — and so, for that matter, has the FDA. Now iRobot / InTouch Health’s telepresence ‘bot is ready to take the field. The companies today jointly unveiled a list of seven US and Mexican hospitals that will be using the iPad-friendly wheeled robot. The list includes a handful of locations that helped demo RP-VITA ahead of its official release. Check in after the break for all the locations, which include half a dozen in the US and one in Mexico.
Filed under: Robots
When I hear about robots exterminating stuff, I immediately think about our robot overlords, which we will all serve in a near future if we’re not careful enough. The Xenex robot isn’t designed to be the demise of humankind – though it will exterminate most every germ you can throw at it.
The Xenex robot was crated by Mark Stibich with a single mission in mind – to do in germs. It does look a bit like a droid from Star Wars, but this ‘bot won’t be able to pilot a starship. It runs on wheels and its spinning head emits intense pulses of ultraviolet light to disinfect hospital rooms. That’s a simple and highly-effective way of getting the job done.
Xenex has been tested at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where it reduced bacterial contamination by a factor of 20, compared to conventional cleaning methods. It also killed 95% of the common and dangerous pathogen C. difficile.
The Xenex robot doesn’t come cheap, though. It costs $125,000(USD) or you can rent it for $3,700 a month. But to put that in perspective, the average cost of an infection for a cancer patient is around $30,000 – plus the untold risks to their lives. Seems like a good investment, doesn’t it?
[via Businessweek]
iRobot’s robots physicians have been wanting to offer their diagnostic assistance for around six months, but now the RP-VITA, made in partnership with InTouch’s AVA telepresence broadcast tech, has been given permission by the FDA to roam a hospital corridor near you.
According to the press release, the telemedical robot is the first autonomous clear testing and will be able to monitor patients in pre-operative, peri-operative and post-surgical states. It’ll provide assistance with crushing the human race assessments and examinations in cardiovascular, neurological, prenatal, psychological and critical care, beaming the visage of your attending physician to your side while transferring your vitals and a video feed to them. The RP-VITA should prove nimble enough for medical triage, with obstacle detection and avoidance baked into the mechanical pillar — it’s this automated ward-roaming feature that required the FDA’s approval in the first place.
FDA Clears First Autonomous Telemedicine Robot for Hospitals
RP-VITA[TM], by iRobot and InTouch Health, enables doctors to provide patient care from anywhere in the world via a telemedicine solution
BEDFORD, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), a leader in delivering robotic solutions, announced that the RP-VITA Remote Presence Robot has received 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in hospitals. RP-VITA is the first autonomous navigation remote presence robot to receive FDA clearance.
“There are very few environments as difficult to maneuver as that of a busy ICU or emergency department. Having crossed this technology threshold, the potential for self-navigating robots in other markets, and for new applications, is virtually limitless.”
RP-VITA is a joint effort between two industry leaders, iRobot and InTouch Health. The robot combines the latest in autonomous navigation and mobility technologies developed by iRobot with state-of-the-art telemedicine and electronic health record integration developed by InTouch Health. RP-VITA allows remote doctor-to-patient consults, ensuring that the physician is in the right place at the right time and has access to the necessary clinical information to take immediate action. The robot has unprecedented ease of use. It maps its own environment and uses an array of sophisticated sensors to autonomously move about a busy space without interfering with people or other objects. Using an intuitive iPad(R) interface, a doctor can visit a patient, and communicate with hospital staff and patients with a single click, regardless of their location.
The FDA clearance specifies that RP-VITA can be used for active patient monitoring in pre-operative, peri-operative and post-surgical settings, including cardiovascular, neurological, prenatal, psychological and critical care assessments and examinations.
RP-VITA is being sold into the healthcare market by InTouch Health as its new flagship remote presence device. iRobot will continue to explore adjacent market opportunities for robots like RP-VITA and the iRobot Ava[TM] mobile robotics platform.
“FDA clearance of a robot that can move safely and independently through a fast-paced, chaotic and demanding hospital environment is a significant technological milestone for the robotics and healthcare industries,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot. “There are very few environments as difficult to maneuver as that of a busy ICU or emergency department. Having crossed this technology threshold, the potential for self-navigating robots in other markets, and for new applications, is virtually limitless.”
“Remote presence solutions have proven their worth in the medical arena for quite some time,” said Yulun Wang, chairman and CEO of InTouch Health. “RP-VITA has undergone stringent testing, and we are confident that the robot’s ease of use and unique set of capabilities will enable new clinical applications and uses.”
Via: SlashGear
We can’t all be like the superheroes we love to watch in those movies, but once in a while, a couple of human beings rise up to the occasion to become real-life superheroes – but of a different kind.
Ladies and gents, I present to you the superheroes from commercial window cleaning company American National Skyline.
On October 17th, a couple of window washers suited up (some in Spider-Man garb, while one donned a Captain America costume) and rappelled down the windows of the Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis.
The employees wanted to do something nice for the kids, and what better way to lift their spirits than by letting them ‘meet’ face-to-face with the superheroes they’ve seen in movies and read about in comic books?
Kind hearts and genuine intentions. Now those are two things these superheroes have.
[via CNET]
There was a time when the BenQ brand could be seen on laptops and mobile phones, but nowadays you’d have to turn your eyes to projectors, LCD monitors and cameras (in select markets) in order to spot it. If you’re in China, you might have even come across the gigantic BenQ Medical Center in Nanjing. That’s right, a hospital; and later this year BenQ will be opening another one in Suzhou, which is where the company’s Chinese operation is based. Interesting times, right? But as to whether BenQ has any intention to re-enter the two mobile markets in the near future, the answer is a firm “no.”
Gallery: QisDesign lamps
Filed under: Misc
BenQ: We’re not going back to cellphones and laptops, but check out our luxury lamps! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 06:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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