A robot called VGo telepresence along with tablets and technology needed to establish a local wireless area network has made its way to one of the Ebola Treatment Units (ETU) in Liberia.

The telepresence robot and devices will be used by aid workers to share data about the outbreak. Doctors and aid workers across West Africa for the first time will have a chance to use computers to access and share information wirelessly.

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The robot will first be used in Monrovia and will later serve as a training assistant depending on its initial performance. It will assist and support doctors and clinicians capture data using the tablets and Wi-Fi network.

"I think that this system is critical to fighting the outbreak," Debbie Theobald, co-founder and executive director of Cambridge, Mass.-based Vecna Cares, told Computerworld.

"This is the first time they'll be using digital records at all in any of the ETUs. Everyone has been using paper."

"If they have had a tablet, all the information they're capturing is stuck on that tablet because they haven't been able to data share across tablets."

Theobald is working on having an electronic medical records system in place to help doctors and nurses track patients and share data with other units.

The system is expected to be fully operational next Tuesday in time for the opening of a new clinic in Monrovia.

Health Care Information Technology Company Vecna Cares also plans to establish a medical records system in two units located in Sierra Leone.

"They need to worry about their patients and the treatments they're giving them and not the technology. We'll be right there beside them with the robot." Theobald added.

TagsSierra Leone, Ebola Treament Units, ETU, outbreak, doctors, Nurses, Clinicians, Monrovia, Vecna Cares, Healthcare IT, Medical Records System, System