New America: Doc Tells Patient He's Going to Die Through Robot-On-Wheels

A California hospital delivered end-of-life news to a 78-year-old patient via a robotic machine this week, prompting the man's family to go public with their frustration.

Ernest Quintana was admitted to the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center emergency department in Fremont, California, on March 3, granddaughter Annalisia Wilharm told USA TODAY in a written message Saturday. The family knew he was dying of chronic lung disease.

[...] A video of the exchange provided to USA TODAY by Wilharm shows the machine being used on Monday to tell grandfather and granddaughter that the hospital had run out of effective treatments.

Annalisia Wilharm needed to restate much of what the the machine communicated, as her grandfather struggled to hear and understand.