Robots in the OR Networks link physicians and enhance patient care

by David Orenstein freelance writer

At the risk of adding to Silicon Valley’s buzzwords, let me coin a trendy phrase: “Networked Therapy.” Two very different and very new applications of computer networks are getting directly involved in the fight against disease.

The first of these applications is remote-controlled robotic surgery. In September, two surgeons in New York removed the gallbladder of a woman in France with a minimally invasive procedure. Of course, this transatlantic surgery was possible only with a reliable data network to link the surgeons’ controls in New York with the robotic arms clamped onto the operating table in Strasbourg.

To conduct the surgery, the operating surgeon grasped joystick-like controllers that manipulated two robotic arms holding laparoscopic instruments inside the patient. To control a third arm holding the endoscopic camera, the surgeon used voice commands. The surgeons and nurses on site in France monitored the patient and changed the instruments the robot arms held.

Robotically assisted surgery, in which robots allow surgeons to work more precisely in cramped areas, first won FDA approval in 2000 in procedures where the surgeon worked in the same room as the patient. In this case, the commands the surgeons sent to the robots, and the video the camera sent back, each had to travel 4000 miles. This means that data had to travel 8000 miles round trip. If the network “blipped out” occasionally or was unpredictably slow, the surgeons would not be able to operate safely. But France Telecom and the robot maker, Computermotion, set up a network that provided a steady and nearly imperceptible delay. In the future, telesurgery could help skilled surgeons teach distant colleagues without traveling, or it could let surgeons safely treat wounded soldiers near the front lines.

In November, IBM announced two other “networked therapy” projects. These combine the processing power, memory, and storage of hundreds or thousands of computers by linking them into a network with special software. Such a network, or “grid,” creates a virtual supercomputer that can perform gargantuan tasks. The participating computers can be anywhere in the world, as long as they have a fast, reliable network connection.

The first of these medical grids will be built for more than 60 North Carolina medical organizations, including Duke University and GlaxoSmithKline Inc. Thousands of researchers and professors will be able to remotely access this virtual supercomputer to perform the genomics and proteomics research that people expect will lead to important new drugs and therapies.

The other grid, funded by the National Library of Medicine and based at the University of Pennsylvania, will become a massive breast cancer diagnosis system available to thousands of hospitals. Physicians will be able to store mammogram images and with each new mammogram, they’ll be able to run powerful software programs that can quickly spot tumors by comparing the latest mammogram with previous ones. The software also will be programmed to discern “clusters” of breast cancer within the population.

Of course, the time-honored caveats apply. These applications are new and speculative—their real value has yet to be proven. But they are based on a compelling and proven logic, which is that networks can overcome distance and improve capability. Networked therapy holds the promise of enhanced patient care.

David Orenstein is a technology and business writer in Silicon Valley. If you are interested in learning more about a topic in Computing Care, e-mail him at davealli@attbi.com.