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A Robot To Deliver Bad News? What a Really, Really Bad Idea
As Telemedicine grows, hospitals and health systems need to have plans in place
I had to do a double take when I read the headline: “Fremont family upset that Kaiser let ‘robot’ deliver bad news.” For a moment there, I thought it was a robot like the picture above…until I read the article:
It’s never easy to hear bad news about a family member in the hospital. For the family of Ernest Quintana, hearing it from a robot video device that rolled into his room made it worse.
“This was horrible for me and him,” Quintana’s granddaughter, Annalisia Wilharm, said in a Facebook post that included a picture of the machine, which features a live doctor on a video screen. Quintana, 79, died Tuesday, two days after the device delivered the news his lungs were failing.
The family and friends of the patient expressed outrage.
“This is not the way to show value and compassion to a patient. Shame on you Kasier,” wrote one family friend. The outrage is completely understandable.
Now, I am big proponent of telemedicine. I worked as an “e-Intensivist,” or remote Critical Care specialist, for over ten years. The technology is great, and it can bring experienced, board-certified…
