For two weeks, Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot has been walking the halls of local hospital Brigham and Women’s. Telemedicine wasn’t generally listed as one of the primary applications for the company’s first commercial product, but Boston Dynamics is only one in a long list of tech companies that’s found itself shifting on the fly as the COVID-19 pandemic has become an all-consuming part of life.
The company says hospitals have been reaching out since early March, asking if there might be a way to incorporate its technology to help with remote health.
“Based on the outreach we received as well as the global shortage of critical personal protective equipment (PPE), we have spent the past several weeks trying to better understand hospital requirements to develop a mobile robotics solution with our Spot robot,” the company writes. “The result is a legged robot that can be deployed to support frontline staff responding to the pandemic in ad-hoc environments such as triage tents and parking lots.”