Three Ways Robotics can Transform Healthcare
- Jeongwoo Lee
- Aug 6, 2024
- 3 min read
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Introduction
Robots, emerging in the 1950s, demonstrated a capability to assist with departments such as manufacturing (DelveInsight, 2021). In the 1980s, robotics was brought to the medical field, specifically in surgery through robotic arm technologies. The existence of AI, also developing since the 1950s, brought modern possibilities of further augmenting medical robotics (Intel). In this blog post, I will talk about how modern robotics can transform healthcare in 3 ways: clinical training (DelveInsight, 2021), healthcare service (Intel), and sanitation (DelveInsight, 2021).
Clinical training
Modern robotics can help train clinical professionals in carrying out their duties. Robots in clinical training can closely simulate real-world clinical scenarios. For example, Pediatric Hal can assist with training clinical pediatricians in response to adverse scenarios in children. Pediatric Hal also uses AI to mimic various expressions such as crying, providing a real-world training experience for new clinical pediatric practitioners (DelveInsight, 2021). I believe that modern robots in clinical training can greatly help clinical practitioners to be prepared and confident for real patient scenarios, due to the capability of robots to use AI to closely emulate real behavior. I do hope, though, that robots in clinical training can represent a wide array of clinical scenarios, so that clinicians can be prepared to respond for less common circumstances.
Healthcare Service
Modern robots can also be tasked with keeping logistics and sending reports autonomously. Robots can help maintain patient rooms and replenish medical supplies. This can allow more allocation of health care workers towards other critical tasks, such as patient care. An example of a modern robot in health care service is the TUG robot by Aethon. The TUG robot helps to deliver linens to nursing units (Intel). Although health care service robots can take care of supply and logistical tasks for health care workers, there would need to be routine Maintenance on the robots themselves in order to ensure a more organized health care flow.
Sanitation
There are hospitals that suffer from lack of sanitation which provides an unsafe environment for visitors, patients, and health care personnel. Luckily robotics are being introduced in hospitals for purposes of sanitation. In addition to disinfecting surfaces, specialized sanitation robots can also promote clean air circulation. Some sanitation robots employ UV technology to assist in sanitation. There has been increased development in sanitation robots following the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically from companies such as Blue Ocean Robotics, iRobot, Skytron, and more (DelveInsight, 2021). I believe sanitation robots are also necessary for countries suffering from substandard hospital Conditions. In my opinion, it is important to allocate sanitation robots to where they might be most needed based on many factors such as hospital conditions.
Conclusion
The introduction of modern robotics in healthcare has allowed useful applications in clinical training, healthcare service, and sanitation. Clinical training, healthcare service, and sanitation robots can partially cover logistics in training, cleaning and medical supplies. This allows more allocation of personnel for important, complex duties Such as talking with patients. This can also imply reduced waiting times for appointments as there are more healthcare personnel available to address them. Robotics in health care can create a more organized and efficient hospital flow.
References
DelveInsight. (2021, February 24). How robots are introducing a new dimension to healthcare service
delivery. Retrieved June 23, 2024, from https://www.delveinsight.com/blog/
robotics-in-healthcare
Intel. (n.d.). Robotics in healthcare: The future of robots in medicine. Intel. Retrieved June 16,