Ava Robotics has developed an autonomous to help hospital staff with COVID-19 patients

This story was originally published here.

For health care workers treating COVID-19 patients, contracting the virus is now a common occurrence. The CDC estimates that as many as 9,200 health care workers have been infected with COVID-19. But an early stage company is aiming to do something about that…

Ava Robotics has developed an autonomous telepresence robot to help hospital staff with COVID-19 patients. Ava Robotics’ background is a bit interesting.

It was originally the health care robotics division of iRobot, the successful company that built its name with autonomous robots that clean the floor. But health care is a very different market than home cleaning robots, so it made a lot of sense to spin this division out into its own company.

The telepresence robot consists of a high-quality camera mounted on a video screen that navigates hospitals and clinics on wheels. It allows remote doctors to see and treat patients or collaborate with other doctors as though they were physically present.

Here’s a visual:

A Telepresence Robot

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Source: Ava Robotics

This is what the future of medicine looks like. Robotic telepresence will empower doctors to be far more efficient, which will enable them to see more patients in a day… especially in a pandemic scenario like we are dealing with now.