ROBOT BRINGS BIT OF SCI-FI INTO ICU SURGEON CO-CREATED GROUNDBREAKING TOOL.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

The next time Dr. Neil Martin climbs Mount Everest, he's taking his patients with him.

The Encino brain surgeon and mountain climber has co-created the most advanced medical cellular smart phone - a handheld wireless device that can receive patients' vital signs, even at the top of the world.

``At that point, I'll have a smart phone that will not only allow me to stay connected with the world - including my patients - but allow the expedition physician to track my own vital signs,'' said Martin, who is considering a second expedition to the 29,035-foot peak.

Martin, chief of neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center, helped develop the world's first remote-control robot in an intensive care unit. He will be lauded in Beverly Hills today for his high-tech advances at a Visionary Ball fundraiser for the UCLA Division of Neurosurgery, featuring ``The Tonight Show'' host Jay Leno.

Not only can the 54-year-old surgeon tele-chat with patients and nurses via a lab coat-wearing robot known as R.O.N.I. - for robot of neurological intensive care - from his Encino home or UCLA office, but he can also read their vital signs, lab results, CT scans, X-rays and other data in order to shave vital minutes during a medical crisis.

While such a robot doesn't replace bedside visits, he said, it augments them around the clock.

``There isn't any other robot system like this,'' said Martin, whose pale blue eyes gaze from one computer-monitor window while he peers into the ICU through another from his UCLA office. The robot, co-developed by InTouch Health of Santa Barbara, has been in use one year.

``We're constantly looking into patients in the middle of the night, or making rounds in the daytime. If someone calls me about a crashing patient, I check in.''

``He's charming,'' said Susan Brtis, an ICU nurse for brain surgery at UCLA, admiring the R2-D2-size member of her staff. ``I wish he could change bedpans and help lift patients.''

For Martin, however, such sci-fi advances weren't enough.

With the advent of electronic pagers, surgeons were often being buzzed by the hospital during a medical crisis.

But that meant dropping everything, including his sons' Little League games. Slogging through Los Angeles traffic. And arriving at UCLA Medical Center either too late - or to a crisis easily handled from afar with detailed medical data.

So Martin and researchers at the UCLA Division of Neurosurgery's Brain Monitoring and Modeling Lab created a smart phone system that gives 24/7 access to patients in or outside the hospital.

Their Global Care Quest cellular devices, now used by dozens of UCLA doctors, provide an instant read on bedside monitors, lab results and CT and MRI images through use of a high-speed wireless network.

The GCQ system, the first of its kind, is now being considered by other hospitals throughout the nation.

``We assume that, in the future, every physician will have a handheld-connected personal computer to make medicine safer,'' said Martin. ``That future's right now at UCLA.''

Martin, an award-winning physician who has a real human skull on his desk, has run numerous marathons and has completed the Ironman World Championship triathlon. When not performing brain surgery, he's climbed Mount Everest, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount McKinley and other peaks.

From his 4-inch GCQ phone, Martin checks on ``Martha,'' a 70-year-old patient now in a coma in the ICU, for a recent brain hemorrhage. It was during a Dodgers playoff game last year that the UCLA doctor received a page from the ICU about the sufferings of a similar patient.

Martin ran up to the Dodger Dog stand for a solid cellular connection, then examined his GCQ handheld.

Bingo.

``I pulled up the patient's X-rays and was able to continue treatment immediately instead of getting in my car and going to the hospital,'' he said. ``And I got to see the Dodgers win the game.''

Dana Bartholomew, [phone]

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Dr. Neil Martin, chief of neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center, uses a smart phone to get patients' vital signs.

(2 -- color) Nurse Susan Brtis speaks with Dr. Neil Martin through the ICU robot's screen. ``I wish he could change bedpans and help lift patients,'' she said of R.O.N.I., the lab coat-wearing bot.

(3 -- color) Dr. Neil Martin demonstrates the use of the robotic system by which he can remotely visit the ICU and gather information.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer