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In Midst of Pandemic, an Israeli Defense Company Quietly Changed the Face of Hospitals
(JNS) Yaakov Lappin - "Part of the Israeli DNA is to face up to missions together," said Irit Idan, executive vice president and head of research and development at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. "This is our nature as a nation. From the moment that this [coronavirus] incident began rolling, Rafael started floating many ideas on how we can assist the health-care system." The company sought to upgrade the medical establishment's capabilities and Idan led the company's assistance program for hospitals. She said the first step involved getting a good understanding of what medical personnel on the new frontlines needed most. Rafael's first conclusion was that the principal problem faced by hospitals was the entry of medical teams into hazardous, virus-filled environments during their day-to-day work. This led to a series of groundbreaking solutions. Rafael made a robotic assistance tool, currently roaming hospital corona wards, that comes into close contact with Covid-19 patients in place of nurses. The robot, which conducts tasks such as food distribution and logistics, can navigate its own way around the hospital and bring trays directly to beds. The robots are also used to enable patients to communicate with family and friends through audio and video links. A second problem identified by Idan and her team was the need to remotely transmit medical readings of patients back to nurses and doctors to reduce their risk of infection. Critically ill patients hooked up to life-support machines have readings of vital signs that must be constantly monitored. Rafael fitted ventilators and nourishment machines with communication cables to transmit the readings back to a separate room, or installed a computer card to the back of the machines that sent them to a nurses' room via WiFi. "Now, they can always monitor the patients' readings without needing to go in," said Idan.