Robotic Surgery Linked To 144 Deaths In The US

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
How many times do I have to tell you guys that ROBOTS ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL?!?!

A study into the safety of surgical robots has linked the machines' use to at least 144 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries over a 14-year period in the US. The events included broken instruments falling into patients' bodies, electrical sparks causing tissue burns and system errors making surgery take longer than planned.
 
My god....that's worse then terrorism!

This whole time we were so worried so about brown people, when we should have looked at the medical industry.

Why didn't we listen......
 
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."

So, slightly better then useless information?!?
 
"In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous "To Err Is Human" report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials 2014 and quoted ubiquitously in the media."

"An updated estimate says it could be at least 210,000 patients a year, more than twice the number in a frequently quoted Institute of Medicine report."

It's taken quite a bit of digging but it looks like doctors performing surgery is an unacceptable risk when machines can do such a superior job.

It's really hard to get the info right, or even know for sure what the accuracy is like on the ol' internet, but it looks like the rate of error in surgery performed by humans is a whole lot higher. There's also the fact that these surgeries are almost all performed remotely, not autonomously, so human error still stacks on to equipment failure in the machines. Never mind the fact that human doctors are often expected to carry out complex procedures when they are radically sleep deprived.

Robots are going to save us all, Steve.

When they rebel we'll unplug them, or just hit their monitors to sort them out. That always works.
 
The article mentions that this is out of 1.7 million surgeries, so the numbers may not be that bad.

This part scared me: "Uncontrolled movements and spontaneous powering on/off of the machines are said to have caused 52 injuries and two deaths." No thank you on robotic "uncontrolled movements" with creepy implements.
 
ta_erog said:
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."

So, slightly better then useless information?!?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was thinking too, a quick Google found an article in 2013

between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death, the study says.
Click to expand...
Granted these are not all surgery, but considering surgery is one of the most dangerous places to be in a hospital considering you're being cut open, the fact hundreds of thousands of patients die each year due to some form of negligence, then 144 deaths over a period of 14 years doesn't sound too bad.
 
Ah should have scrolled down to more of the posts, I see Twisted Kidney saw the same thing I did.
 
ta_erog said:
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."
Click to expand...

Why the fuck would they not compare the accident rates with similar operation in which robots were not used? Fuckin retards.
 
So, I skimmed through the article as I've got other things going on at work, but I didn't see the actual number of patients that robots were used on. How is the number of deaths and injuries relevant without the total number? I'd like to know how many successes there were, and then compare those numbers to surgeries performed by human doctors.
 
Yeah, but that fucking Robot sure won't forget to Bill you....
 
ta_erog said:
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."

So, slightly better then useless information?!?
Click to expand...

No! Information is never useless, but those researchers are :rolleyes:

32,000 deaths by human controlled motor vehicles in 2013. What's more dangerous?
 
I wonder how many of those patients were named

"Sarah Conner"
 
J3RK said:
So, I skimmed through the article as I've got other things going on at work, but I didn't see the actual number of patients that robots were used on. How is the number of deaths and injuries relevant without the total number? I'd like to know how many successes there were, and then compare those numbers to surgeries performed by human doctors.
Click to expand...

This point exactly. Let's just point out everything bad and no successes or comparison to the human success/failure rate.
 
J3RK said:
So, I skimmed through the article as I've got other things going on at work, but I didn't see the actual number of patients that robots were used on. How is the number of deaths and injuries relevant without the total number? I'd like to know how many successes there were, and then compare those numbers to surgeries performed by human doctors.
Click to expand...

It's there, buried in the middle of the article. And it's buried because 144 deaths, associated to something we may all have to go through at some point in our lives, generates far more clicks than "Less Than 0.008% of Robotic Surgeries Result in Fatalities".
 
ta_erog said:
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."

So, slightly better then useless information?!?
Click to expand...

Seems to me that studies these days only release click-bait type information for a sensationalized title.

So much missing information makes this all useless.
 
Also, a Waldo is NOT a robot . . .
People are getting way too free with the Term robot nowadays.
 
It would seem almost all of those accidents could've been prevented with proper and REGULAR maintenance/calibration. This is the future though, even a well trained doctor has a shakier hand than a robotic one, you also don't need to worry how well rested your overworked doctor is when a robot is doing precision surgery.
 
spugm1r3 said:
It's there, buried in the middle of the article. And it's buried because 144 deaths, associated to something we may all have to go through at some point in our lives, generates far more clicks than "Less Than 0.008% of Robotic Surgeries Result in Fatalities".
Click to expand...

Aha! Thanks for pointing that out. Was working at the time.
 
ta_erog said:
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."

So, slightly better then useless information?!?
Click to expand...

Actually, worse than useless since it gives people the wrong impression, i.e. that these procedures are somehow more dangerous than the alternative, when in fact they are not.

Similar to click-bait about AI car crashes we see now and again.
 
After seeing how many "Doctors" work, and how easy they escape justice because of careless mistakes, I'll take the machine any day..
 
ta_erog said:
"The researchers did not, however, compare accident rates with similar operations in which robots were not used. Their study has not been peer reviewed."

So, slightly better then useless information?!?
Click to expand...

Hahaha...entirely useless if there's no comparison to deaths caused by non-robotic surgeries.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top