But its introduction breaks new ground in the world of pathology, where officials here and across the country say they have long struggled to balance a growing caseload with a national shortage of trained pathologists to help investigate violent or unexplained deaths.
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Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical examiner’s office launched a system in which one of its physicians can examine a body remotely using a camera. The state has used this so-called telepathology program in roughly 300 external exams from its Cape Cod office in Sandwich. Officials say they don’t use telepatholgy in autopsies — which have been conducted more sparingly in recent years — or in other more complex cases, such as homicides or suspicious deaths.
External examinations are less exhaustive than autopsies, and typically involve a physician viewing a body, reviewing medical records, and doing toxicology tests. A physician can generally do three external examinations in the time it takes to perform one autopsy.
But the telepathology system has its limits, officials said. The camera can’t be operated by remote control, meaning a human technician has to be on hand.
Enter Spot. Equipped with a movable arm, camera, and “graspers,” the remote-controlled robot will “expand telepathology into the Boston office,” state officials said, in effect allowing a medical examiner in another office to examine a body in Boston. The machine also could be used to sanitize a room after “an infectious case to reduce staff exposure,” officials said.
Such uses are believed to be novel: State officials and a spokesperson for Boston Dynamics say they are not aware of any other medical examiner or coroner’s office using the technology.
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“Incorporating the Boston Dynamics SPOT robot reflects the OCME’s leadership in using advanced technology to bolster forensic pathology services and prioritize agency safety, effectiveness, and efficiency,” said spokesperson Elaine Driscoll.
State officials contend the dog-like robot will not affect whether pathologists conduct a full autopsy or a external exam. Officials said they also don’t plan to reduce staff because of the purchase.
But Spot won’t be confined to the exam room. Examiners plan to use it to take photos, conduct safety inspections, or even make repairs. The machine is also capable of monitoring the Boston facility “continuously,” officials said, including doing off-hours security patrols. Spot can be equipped with both cameras and sensors, and can both record and send alerts.
Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said the medical examiner’s proposed uses don’t immediately raise the potential for serious civil rights issues. But at $270,000, Crockford said it appears to be “very expensive technology to perform what sounds like to be a glorified video conference feature.”
The ACLU and Boston Dynamics are among those backing a bill in Massachusetts that would seek to limit the robots’ use in other ways, including banning the selling or operation of a robot or drone that is mounted with a weapon, including a gun, explosives, or “weaponized lasers.”
“The law is kind of a blunt instrument,” Crockford said. “There’s room for regulations in state government that can provide some more detailed guidance about how government agencies and actors ought to be using these technologies.”
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The Spot robot has oscillated between being a viral Internet sensation, a terrifying technological omen, and, in recent years, a novel yet controversial tool of law enforcement. They’ve popped up in businesses and facilities, helping to fix leaky pipes or map construction sites. Some appeared in hospitals during the pandemic. Others have painted or poured a beer.
The State Police bomb squad has two Spot robots — bought in 2021 and 2022 at a combined cost of $309,000 — that it uses in hazmat situations and to move explosive devices, said Jake Wark, a spokesperson for the state fire marshal’s office, which oversees the bomb squad. One robot, dubbed “Roscoe,” took three bullets in March after State Police sent it into a Cape Cod home where an armed man had barricaded himself.
Police or sheriff’s departments in St. Petersburg, Fla., Honolulu, Pennsylvania, and the Netherlands have all used the machines. And New York City officials announced last year that they had purchased two of them for bomb threats or hostage situations, two years after sidelining another amid fierce public backlash.
Nikolas Noel, a spokesperson for Boston Dynamics, said that while the company doesn’t believe a medical examiner’s office has used Spot before, it has been used in medical settings. Some of the medical examiner’s plans for the robot, such as for inspections or to make “security rounds,” also mirror how others have used it.
The robot will join an agency that has already dramatically shifted how it approaches investigations under its chief, Dr. Mindy Hull.
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Since Hull’s hiring in 2017, the office has sharply reduced how often it conducts autopsies amid a climbing caseload, driving autopsy rates in the office to one of the lowest in the country among similar agencies.
Last fiscal year, medical examiners performed autopsies in just 23 percent of the cases it handled.
The office has also increasingly used a method in which physicians don’t examine a body in person at all, instead relying on medical records and photographs taken by staff, before identifying a cause and manner of death. Last fiscal year, examiners performed nearly 1,800 of those so-called chart reviews, accounting for one in every five cases the office handled. That marked a sevenfold increase from just four years earlier.
At the same time, the office’s spending on overtime has ballooned, nearly doubling over a four-year span. Last fiscal year, one medical examiner alone earned $211,000 in overtime and more than half a million in pay overall.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
