Alabama’s robotic ultrasound plan raises concerns from OB-GYNs
By Zoe Blair
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JASPER, Alabama (WVTM) — Dr. Mehmet Oz recently highlighted Alabama’s plan to use robots for ultrasounds due to a shortage of OB-GYNs during a rural healthcare roundtable with White House officials, a statement that has sparked significant attention on social media.
The initiative is part of Alabama’s use of the $203 million awarded under the federal government’s Rural Health Transformation Program, which was created in the Big Beautiful Bill.
According to the grant proposal, Alabama intends to allocate some of the funding for digital obstetric regionalization and telerobotic ultrasound. However, OB-GYNs in the state expressed skepticism about the plan’s effectiveness.
“This won’t take care of access to maternal care, it won’t decrease the mortality rate,” said Dr. LoRissia Autery, an OB-GYN at Walker Women’s Specialists, who serves patients in five rural counties.
She emphasized that while the maternal mortality rate is a significant issue, robotic ultrasounds are not the solution.
“There may be a case where a mom may have no fluid and that patient needs to go to a hospital, but if you’re in a part of the county that doesn’t have a hospital that has obstetrical services, now you have to drive an hour to an hour and a half to receive those services from a physician that did not do the ultrasound,” Autery said. “If she is an hour and a half away, I still have to wait on her to get here. For us, someone is always here all the time. We live here.”
Autery stated that she would not use robotic ultrasounds if given the choice, as she believes they remove the personal touch from caregiving.
“There’s something to be said about just human reaction, touching someone, hugging them if they get bad news. For me, I want that. That’s one of the reasons I actually went into OB-GYN is because we have continuity of care,” she said.
Instead, Autery advocates for investing in recruiting doctors to rural areas. “Alabama has one of the worst maternal mortality rates. So, yes, we do need access to all types of health care,” she said. “Most physicians we’ve been recruiting, they don’t want to come to a smaller area for a variety of reasons.”
The Rural Health Transformation Program will distribute $50 billion across all 50 states, with Alabama receiving $203.4 million for 2026.
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