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“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you fee your ache?” – one of many iconic strains within the Disney animated movie Large Hero 6, the place Baymax, a healthcare companion robotic, responded to the movie’s protagonist, Hiro’s bodily response by stubbing his toe.
As I re-watched this scene at house, I puzzled once I may have my very own private robotic caretaker that’s as lovable and huggable as Baymax, however little did I do know that Singapore is already constructing in direction of this imaginative and prescient.
In recent times, Singapore has seen a surge in robots and robotic know-how being utilized in numerous industries, together with the healthcare business.
From relieving manpower shortages to interacting with sufferers, here’s a deep dive into how robots and robotic know-how are utilized in Singapore’s healthcare ecosystems.
A colleague to human nurses
Just lately, there was a surge of improvements utilizing robotic know-how to deal with manpower shortages worldwide, particularly through the world COVID-19 pandemic which put immense stress on healthcare employees in Singapore.
A hospital no stranger to robots is Changi Normal Hospital (CGH), as they integrated robotic know-how into their operations as early as 2015. The hospital not too long ago introduced a brand new trial with three new robots of their emergency division (ED) in July this 12 months: MEDi – a drugs supply robotic; EDi – a robotic that helps sufferers and kin to navigate across the hospital, and BLANKi – a robotic that delivers blankets to sufferers.
These robots have automated repetitive and mundane duties, with MEDi saving as much as two hours of time for nurses within the ED and BLANKi decreasing the workload of retrieving gadgets by practically half. In a separate interview with ChannelNewsAsia (CNA), nurses have shared that it permits them to deal with tending to their sufferers extra and carry out ‘human-related’ duties reminiscent of dressing wounds and bedside care.
“We wished to harness using robotics to discover a extra progressive answer to optimise our manpower, sources and likewise to streamline our processes within the ED (emergency division),” mentioned senior nurse supervisor at CGH Emergency Division Elaine Leong in an interview with CNA. As of now, the hospital is seeking to discover extra alternatives for robots for use in different departments apart from the ED.
One other hospital that additionally makes use of robotic assistants is Alexandra Hospital (AH), with their profitable trial on robotic assistant ‘Florence’. Based on an article by The Straits Occasions, robotic assistants have the flexibility to “exchange” two nurses, cementing the necessity for robots to help jobs missing in manpower.
Other than delivering medicines and snacks to sufferers, Florence additionally helps to measure the affected person’s respiratory patterns and important indicators by its digital camera, sensors and pulse oximeter.
Decreasing dangers from surgical procedures
Beforehand, sufferers who require surgical procedures throughout totally different physique programs are required to undergo a number of procedures. These procedures are sometimes open surgical procedures, the place bigger incisions on the affected person’s physique are made for the surgeons to have higher entry to your organs throughout surgical procedure. However with conventional open surgical procedures, sufferers typically expertise longer restoration occasions and have the next danger of infections whereas on the hospital.
Nevertheless in recent times, we now have seen extra hospitals and medical establishments utilizing robotic know-how such because the Da Vinci XI robotic to conduct extra minimally invasive surgical procedures throughout a number of physique programs, eliminating the necessity for a number of procedures. Mount Elizabeth Hospital used this robotic to efficiently full a seven-hour lengthy surgical procedure throughout three sections of the physique, making it Singapore’s first.
“As we needed to function on each these organs, utilizing standard open surgical procedure would have meant a really lengthy reduce was wanted, round 40cm from the chest to the pubic bone, as in contrast with a couple of 1cm cuts wanted with the robotic,” mentioned Dr Chin Chong Min, a urologist with the hospital in an interview with The Straits Occasions.
Singapore can also be within the midst of experimenting with robotic telesurgery, which permits surgical procedures to be carried out remotely by robotic know-how. The NUS Yong Lavatory Lin Faculty of Drugs (NUS Drugs) partnered with Japan’s Fujita Well being College (FHU), making it the primary robotic telesurgery trial between Singapore and Japan.
Nevertheless, as with every process remotely performed comes the danger of community disconnecting mid-surgery, in addition to time lags. Based on Professor Jimmy So, Head and Senior Marketing consultant, Division of Normal Surgical procedure (Higher Gastrointestinal Surgical procedure), Division of Surgical procedure at NUH, the time lags have been minimal and performed safely through the trial.
Nevertheless, he was fast to make clear that there’s nonetheless much more that must be accomplished earlier than robotic telesurgery may very well be accomplished on reside sufferers and the robotic will largely be used for coaching. It’s also value noting that surgeons should be skilled in robotic surgical procedures earlier than they will function on sufferers with robotic know-how.
Nonetheless, there’s immense potential for brand spanking new discoveries and developments in robotic surgical procedures, which might disrupt the healthcare industries enormously sooner or later.
Rehabilitative and AI robots on the rise
Robots have additionally turn out to be extra frequent in remedy and rehabilitation, resulting in the rise in robotic-assisted bodily remedy in Singapore. These robots are designed to assist sufferers regain their mobility and feeling of their limbs – with some native MedTech startups creating their very own units and organising their very own rehabilitation amenities.
Singaporean MedTech startup Articares launched their very own moveable arm rehabilitation robotic H-man in 2020. The robotic is at the moment used at healthcare establishments worldwide, together with Tan Tock Seng Hospital. By interacting with the robotic, it helps stroke sufferers regain higher limb mobility by enjoying train video games, to which the robotic evaluates their progress and transmits the knowledge to the therapists.
One other sort of robotic that’s changing into extra frequent are Synthetic Intelligence (AI) robots. Whereas this idea is just not new for most of the people, they’ve revolutionised many established industries reminiscent of aviation worldwide.
For instance, in Large Hero 6, Baymax is programmed by a number of information chips, together with his healthcare chip that’s based mostly on ‘10,000 surgical procedures’. Like Baymax, AI robots are programmed by historic information and have proven to be succesful in offering emotional and bodily care in direction of sufferers.
One notable instance is Nadine – an AI robotic created by Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, a robotic professional from the College of Geneva. After making headlines for being the world’s first AI robotic receptionist, Nadine was seen facilitating a recreation of Bingo with aged sufferers at Brilliant Hill Evergreen House, an aged house in Singapore in 2020.
Lim Hwee Er, Director and Principal OT guide at Goshen Consultancy Providers shared in an interview with Thalmann that the relationships established between the aged and Nadine exhibits a well-adjusted interplay between people and robots.
The usage of Nadine, a humanoid robotic, has helped to enhance their cognitive perform, consideration [span] and reminiscence.
Lim Hwee Er, Director and Principal OT guide at Goshen Consultancy Providers
Extra robots to return?
Robots and robotic know-how have proven large promise to revolutionise healthcare, with extra healthcare establishments all over the world adopting and experimenting with them. Furthermore, the general potential of robots revolutionising healthcare and medication has proven to exponentially improve when mixed with new applied sciences reminiscent of AI.
That being mentioned, the automation of duties carried out by robots doesn’t imply that your entire healthcare workforce might be changed solely. As an alternative, robots and robotic know-how are enjoying a supporting function in fulfilling the tasks of medical doctors and nurses. Within the case of surgeons, they’re utilizing robots as a ‘software’ to carry out much less invasive surgical procedures on their sufferers.
Therefore, this additionally ascertains that robotics will proceed to carry optimistic developments to healthcare and we shouldn’t have to fret about dwelling in a dystopian society paying homage to ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Matrix’.
Featured Picture Credit score: Nationwide College Well being System (NUHS)
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