DaytonDailyNews.com

FAIRBORN — For health care professionals who can't be in two places at once, it may be the next best thing: a robot that allows them to move, see, hear and talk at any location in the world.

RP-7, a teaching robot for nurses introduced Tuesday at Wright State University, stands 5-foot-6 from its rollerball feet (for easy movement in any direction) to the rotating monitor that projects the instructor's face.

Instructor and students can see and hear each other through live two-way audio and video. Using a joystick and a laptop computer, the instructor can maneuver the robot to a patient's bedside and, with a variety of remotely linked probes, hear and see the same vital signs and symptoms being gathered by students.

Developed a year ago by InTouch Technologies Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., about 100 RP-7s are now in use around the world, mostly in suburban and rural hospitals to help stretch a shortage of physicians by allowing them remote interaction with patients, company officials said.

At the Nursing Institute of West Central Ohio, based at Wright State, the robot will be tested for the first time as a possible way to alleviate the coming shortage of nursing instructors.

"What we can do is offer new workplace arrangements for retired or aging nurses, or nurses with physical impairments, such as knee or hip or mobility problems," said Debi Sampsel, the institute's executive director. "This allows them to work at home or anywhere in the world."

The robot is equipped with both wide angle and close-up cameras so instructors can see everything from an entire classroom to the tiniest lesion on a patient's skin.