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One aspect of telemedicine is allowing patients to remain living in their homes. Instead of placing disabled elderly in nursing facilities, in the near future robot assistants may allow the disabled elderly to remain in their homes longer,

according to a presentation at the 2009 meeting of the 2009 Annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Conference & Exhibition (HIMSS).

“We will see robots assistants provide service to the elderly in their homes,” stated David Cowan, Executive in Residence, Program Director, of Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech and Emory University from Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Cowan presented El – E (Elley) and the robots are being designed by Charlie Kemp, PhD in the Laboratories of Ga Tech Health Systems. Robot assistants may replace animal service in the near future. “It takes about $17,000 to train a service dog and they (the service dog) are good for about 7 years and there are draw backs in maintenance and management of the service dog. Robots do not share these draw backs, as you can imagine.”

Robots designed for helping handicapped patients in their daily lives are now capable of responding to voice commands to help with medications, food and other common activities at home, as well as following a laser pointer to pick up items and open and close doors. “However, some seniors are still somewhat afraid of the technology,” Mr. Cowan explained, introducing some of the current barriers to robot services. “We have done a lot of telemedicine in the past, but outside of the prison setting, we do not expect the use of robots in telemedicine settings, like a rural setting, to become wide spread,” Mr. Cowan told MedicExchange.

Service robots, or ‘Carebots’ will become common only, “When Medicare is willing to pay for them, and when they work well and seniors are willing to buy them,” Mr. Cowan stated, providing an example of a past adoption of motorized wheel chairs: once paid for by Medicare, motorized wheel chairs became commonly sold. Today, ‘When Medicare won’t pay, we will,’ is the motto of some the companies selling such wheel chairs.

Mr. Cowan then expects Medicare coverage in about 5 to 8 years after carebots are on the market, and in the meantime carebots need early adopters on the market to pay for them and then in 5-8 yrs, Medicare will likely pay. The technology is overcoming the fear some elderly have for robots. “Carebots will become a common reality when seniors are not afraid of them, when carebots look more human. For example, we placed two cameras on El-E to look more like eyes,” Mr. Cowan explained.

In conclusion, the tipping point for uptake of Carebots will happen when the roadblocks to uptake are overcome including not only features, functions, and cost, but also overcoming the culture, support of third party payers, and when competing options are viewed as equivalent. “In summary,” stated Mr. Cowan, “the economic factors include getting the price point down to the cost of home care for about 6 months ($2K-$3K/month = $12K-$18K) and the second that Medicare covers it (Carebots), the market will take off.”

This article is under review by the presenter who is in the process of fact checking.

Interview:

David Cowan, Executive in Residence, Program Director, of Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech and Emory University explains the future economic uptake of Carebots ...

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