Dr. Robot. Paging Dr. Robot.
The ambulance took Elijah Lee from his Warrenville home and sped him to Central DuPage Hospital. Seconds counted that October night because the 61-year-old had already had one stroke, and this could be another.
Lee's wife, Helen, drove on her own, meeting her two adult sons in the familiar emergency room.
But what wasn't familiar this time was the robot.
The 5-foot cylinder-shaped device glided from behind the curtain to greet Lee soon after arrival.
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"It had this TV screen for a head and it was my doctor," Lee said. "He asked me to move my arms and move my legs."
A stroke specialist with the hospital's Neurosciences Institute, operating a laptop from another location, appeared on the flat screen on top of the robot. The doctor was able to talk directly to Lee and listen to him, asking Lee to perform several movements to help determine the extent of this second stroke. The robot then swiveled so the doctor could answer questions from the family.
Last October, Central DuPage was the first in the state to lease the robot -- affectionately called Jerry Newman (a cross between Jerry Seinfeld and another character, Newman, on the TV series). It has helped provide immediate medical consultations for stroke victims entering the ER when a specialist wasn't readily available in house.
Also, Central DuPage, which handles about 700 stroke victims annually, has been talking with other hospitals to form a network that would use such robots when stroke patients enter their ERs, said Robert Friedberg, executive vice president of the hospital's Neurosciences Institute in Winfield.
"This would help area hospitals that don't have ready access to such technology," said Friedberg.
Central DuPage leases Jerry for about $60,000 annually, which includes maintenance, service and upgrades, said Chad Gifford, regional vice president of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based In Touch Health, which makes the robots. Gifford is based in Lake Forest.
"They're definitely innovators," Gifford said about Central DuPage's effort to form the network.
Jerry is more than just a gray-colored computer on wheels. It runs on electricity and the hospital's WiFi wireless Internet system. So when not in use, Jerry is plugged into a wall socket in the ER. When an emergency arises, Jerry can unplug himself and zip off down the hall to the patient.
It has high-powered lenses that can provide a wide-angled view of a room or zoom in for a tight look into a patient's eyes. It also has a line of sensors toward the bottom that "feels" its way down a hallway. If Jerry senses something in the way, it will stop instead of bumping into it.
The doctor who works on the laptop offsite uses a joy stick to control Jerry's movements. The doctor's face and voice are emitted from Jerry's "face" screen.
While specialists can use Jerry to help perform a visual exam and provide consultation, they are limited physically. Jerry cannot perform any medical procedures, such as drawing blood or taking blood pressure.
While most doctors accept the new technology, some are reluctant, Friedberg said.
"Some physicians are very enthralled with it while some don't have the computer dexterity to operate it," he said. "If you were 10 years old and grew up with Nintendo, then this would be easy. But some just aren't geared up that way."
Overall, Friedberg said patients have accepted Jerry and found some comfort knowing specialists are available within minutes.
"I didn't feel uncomfortable with it at all," Elijah Lee said. "It was a very natural feeling. It had the doctor's voice and didn't scare me one bit. It probably would help a lot of kids, too."