Medical Care in 2070, Your VR Doctor and Nursing staff Options

[WearzManySkins]

Ok looking over the rules in Augmentation, it appears that most non kit, medical care units ie shops, or facilities have fully function VR abilities.

What does this mean for health care,,,well you doctor will be 99.9% reviewing the patients vitals via VR and AR/VR any patient care notations.

The same can be said of the nursing staff, using VR to keep track of patient vitals etc, insuring medications are delivered on time and accurately.

I can see the doctor and the nurse being off site, using VR to perform their jobs.

Who responds if there is a patient emergency, there can be on site staff just for those emergencies, but not a large staff. But of the medical equipment that the patient is using can deal with alot of the emergencies.

Surgery procedures can be done via VR, also the surgeons will love it,,,no need to get all scrubbed up and all that. The risk management will love it too, they will have a VR record of the procedure.

I see the immersion tank as being a godsend for patient care from the hospital's point of view.

You attached a breathing mask, attach the needed plumbing, feed via tube, remove wastes via the plumbing.

No bed sores, no airborne infections, no patients falling out of beds.

The patient if aware can us VR to communicate to the health care staff who is on VR. The patient can also use the VR to keep himself entertained.

The immersion tank will have the ability to monitor vitals, medication delivery, food usage, and usage of the various aspects of the attached plumbing.

Patient's family can see their relative via VR interface, and maybe not see the gross damages that is being repaired on the patient too.

Who cleans up,,well once the patient is decanted, the tank fluids are drained away, and a non nursing staff member, can assist the patient in leaving the health care site.

Restocking of the various things the immersion tank needs can be done by a low paid wage slave or via a drone designed to do so.

WMS

[WhiskeyMac]

So kinda like Luke Skywalker in the Bacta Tanks?

[WearzManySkins]

[ronin3338]

I see it a little differently...

I figure AR would be used mostly, with VR reserved for surgeries or other invasive procedures. At the hospital, you would be in a monitor bed, a nurse would come by and check vitals through AR, ask questions, record notes in AR, etc.

Something like the fluid tank I would reserve for patients in a coma or something like that. Drowning is a primal fear, and I can't imagine very many people would allow themselves to be immersed full time in a fluid tank.

[Buster]

Immersion tanks are all futuristicy and look spooky on film, but realistically what would be in an immersion tank in SR4 that isn't in a medkit or autodoc? I would imagine the same scenario you described in the first post, but with autodoc beds instead of bacta tanks.

[Jaid]

[ronin3338]

People still want a personal tough, especially in health care. A VR nurse or agent is not going to convince a patient that someone cares about their health.

[Jaid]

[ronin3338]

I see your point... although I think clinics will have more one-on-one than hospitals.

Just another example of the best care going to those with the money, eh?

[FrankTrollman]

[Buster]

I once sat in an emergency room for 4 hours until 2 in the morning dripping blood on the floor before someone had the time to stitch me back together. So I can say with enthusiasm that I would rather have an autodoc or droid stitch me back together quick rather than wait for the "human touch". After 120 hour a week workshifts, there isn't much humanity left in ER staff anyways.

[WearzManySkins]

In todays world, over the last 25 years the nurse to patient ratio has drastically changed. At first in intensive care areas, the ratio was 1 to 1, and the nurse was a 4 year RN.

Today the ratio is 3-5 to 1, depending upon how much the facility can convince the nurse to accept/work the ratio, and the nurse may be a 2 year RN or a LVN in some extreme cases.

Their is a current nursing shortage, the salaries the nurses make 2 or 4 year there is no difference, is extremely good by todays standards. It is very common for a nurse to be discharged from a facility to have another job before she has even left the first facility.

The corporate types, do not care the situation that the nursing shortage has put them into, any way the corp types can they will reduce the need for nursing staff.

In 2070 the nurse to patient ratio will be greater than 20 to 1 in general care areas, and greater than 10 to 1 in intensive care areas.

VR health care the corp types will go nuts over, why? well in cold sim VR like the poster above has said the nurse can do much more work. The nurses will like it due to she does not have to go into work, get a uniform etc. Yes there will a a very small requirement of a on site nurse, but not anywhere near like today.

I can also see trauma surgeons and the like having something like a control rig, and basically rig the surgeries.

As for beds the cost penalties in todays world, like patient falls, is a major negative revenue stream.

The bottom line for most Corp based health care facilities is the nuyen, just like in todays world. Any way the costs can be reduced via VR, immersion tanks, it will take place, they may Spin that they have the personal touch, but again that is Spin.

The public "funded" health care facilities..*shudders* they will make todays public health care facilities look pristine and ordered.

[Nikoli]

Frank, given that cyber-arms have what seems to be full if "artificial feeling" sensory capability (going by fluff text), it seems reasonable that an auto-doc kit with a 3 or better medicine rating should be trainable to tell you what your mind interperets as quality of a pulse. Machines today can't reliably because we lack the sensors and the artificial intelligence to give the machines to let them fill in the blanks.

I could see the small time, run by idealists shadow clinics doing that as well as the very high end (read gold or better) medical contracts.
But they will still rely on the gear to give better numbers. The human touch is more for the psychological well being of the patient, not any physiological mechanism. Better numebrs with less effort is what a general hospital will go for. As someone said, why pay a metahuman 20k+ a year when a 3k drone can do the job as well, consistently over it's work cycle without a break longer than necessary for refill, maintenance and a recharge?
Slap in a persona and you have a cheerful drone greeting each patient by name (or pseudonym as desired), feeding them, removing empty dishes, changing linen, tidy the room, fluff pillows, deliver sponge baths, changing dressings, refilling auto-injectors, measuring the air quality, etc.
Being generous, say each drone costs 8k, you could conceivably have a drone dedicated to 5 rooms and give each patient more personalized care than a full staff of nurses. You would still have live nurses and doctors on site, for cases of computer glitches, power outages, and high profile patients. Also, security concerns being what they are, I see a hospital drone system being closed and separate from the network. Patient data would be piped over to the main system, but controls would be heavily firewalled.

[WearzManySkins]

@Frank Trollman
Pulse oximeters to my end have been there for over 20 years, in 2001 they were even cheaper, yes today they are very cheap.

FYI the pulse ox does not use a laser beam,,a whole other kettle of fish FDA wise, but merely uses a IR signal supplied by IR diodes. The salesperson may have said laser but,,,

The use of sensors of 2070 for taking vitals etc, would be most interesting by todays point of view.

In todays world the integration of multiple vital signs monitoring into one small package is continuing, like the example of the propaq. In 2070 one small device could/would have greater range of functions than several of our current day ones.

WMS

[Jaid]

[WearzManySkins]

@Jaid
Right you are, but the more complete/through model is the Nano-Biomonitor. :)

What I was referring to is functions that none of the biomonitor series have like ultrasound imaging, EMG, EEG, nerve conduction, diagnostic imaging etc.

WMS

[Cheops]

We had a similar question in my group since one player is playing a fully qualified doctor/face. He asked me if it was possible for his character to perform sugery on herself? Luckily I'd just been reading about medtech and came across the VR thing as well.

I couldn't find any reason why the character couldn't do all her own implant surgery through VR as long as she could anesthetize (sp?) herself without using a general. Shops and facilities come with the remote docs, drones, and autosofts to do it all so why couldn't she do it? Made sense to me.

I'd definitely see like 75-90% of the world in SR never seeing a real doctor. I'd even go so far as to say that in those "fancy" clinics you could probably get away with a SUPER attractive man/woman (depending on gender of client) that has a commlink, nanotrodes, and an Linguasoft (Medspeak) chip. Patient sits in waiting room where sensors do a quick scan of patient. They are then brought into "examination room" with all the set dressing and the sex bomb walks in and flirts and asks questions while attaching them to a biomonitor. This info is all fed by commlink to "central doctor dispatch" where it is assessed and then the doctor relays via text to the sex bomb. The linguasoft tells the sex bomb how to pronounce all the words that he/she doesn't understand. Someone with a high Charisma and good Negotiation/Con would be more than sufficient to make most people feel comfortable.

Hell, you could take it a step further and put that cyber in the sex bomb that keeps them from remembering what happened like they do with bunraku prostitutes and corp secretaries. Japan ruled the Phillipines for several decades--I'm sure their medical system is full of sex-bomb Phillipinas. Not to mention it is a better job than just outright selling your body and I'm sure there'd be lots of SINless candidates for it.

[WearzManySkins]

@Cheops
From what I have read in Augmentation, for anesthesia, one can use a pain editor to accomplish the same effect.

I too can see a character performing surgery on him/herself, as long as they are conscious, it a possibility depending upon what procedure needs to be performed. As others have pointed out Brain Surgery is something for Mr. Lucky to attempt. :D

As for you receptionist and the bomb,,I see that only in the higher end private health care facilities, the public care facilities you be lucky if they even noticed you being there.

WMS

[kzt]

Just like the bit about any lawyer representing himself has fool for a client, there are other sayings about doctors who have their family members as patients. It would take a special level of foolishness to work on yourself.

[WearzManySkins]