Last week, a female patient arrived at Holy Rosary Medical Center in Ontario, Oregon for complications with her pregnancy. She had an emergency C-section and a baby girl was born at 27 weeks, weighing under 2 lbs. The baby was transferred to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center (SARMC) in Boise, Idaho, for treatment and surgery.

The team at SARMC used the RP-7 Robot and a Laptop ControlStation to facilitate an interaction between the parents and their newborn baby. Before the robotic interaction, the family had only seen their baby through a few cell phone pictures. Linda White, the nurse at Holy Rosary who coordinated this interaction, was able to set up their Laptop ControlStation and zoom in close to the baby girl's face. The parents communicated with the baby for two hours through the robot, their first real bonding time with their baby.

Ms. White describes the experience, "The Mom and Dad sat at the computer on our end for 2 hours just talking to their baby. The NICU staff was so very awesome and let the robot stay at the bedside so the mom could just talk to her baby. This is a family who has little availability for travel to Boise so this was great. We got pictures of the mom and dad talking with the baby via the computer. We could get a close up of the baby's face and the mom immediately started crying when we zoomed in----she was so grateful as was the dad. The most fun and rewarding thing I have done in several years in my job. Thanks to all and for the opportunity to work with telemedicine."