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“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you charge your ache?” – one of many iconic traces within the Disney animated movie Huge 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 after I might 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 varied 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 throughout the world COVID-19 pandemic which put immense stress on healthcare employees in Singapore.
A hospital no stranger to robots is Changi Basic Hospital (CGH), as they integrated robotic know-how into their operations as early as 2015. The hospital just lately introduced a brand new trial with three new robots of their emergency division (ED) in July this yr: 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 objects by almost 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 comparable to dressing wounds and bedside care.
“We wished to harness using robotics to discover a extra revolutionary resolution to optimise our manpower, sources and likewise to streamline our processes within the ED (emergency division),” stated senior nurse supervisor at CGH Emergency Division Elaine Leong in an interview with CNA. As of now, the hospital is trying to discover extra alternatives for robots for use in different departments aside 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’. In response to an article by The Straits Instances, robotic assistants have the power to “exchange” two nurses, cementing the necessity for robots to assist jobs missing in manpower.
Other than delivering medicines and snacks to sufferers, Florence additionally helps to measure the affected person’s respiration patterns and very important indicators via its digicam, sensors and pulse oximeter.
Reducing dangers from surgical procedures
Beforehand, sufferers who require surgical procedures throughout totally different physique methods 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 usually expertise longer restoration instances and have the next danger of infections whereas on the hospital.
Nevertheless lately, we’ve got 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 methods, 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 lower was wanted, round 40cm from the chest to the pubic bone, as in contrast with a couple of 1cm cuts wanted with the robotic,” stated Dr Chin Chong Min, a urologist with the hospital in an interview with The Straits Instances.
Singapore can be within the midst of experimenting with robotic telesurgery, which permits surgical procedures to be carried out remotely via robotic know-how. The NUS Yong Lavatory Lin College 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 all process remotely performed comes the danger of community disconnecting mid-surgery, in addition to time lags. In response to Professor Jimmy So, Head and Senior Guide, Division of Basic Surgical procedure (Higher Gastrointestinal Surgical procedure), Division of Surgical procedure at NUH, the time lags had been minimal and performed safely throughout the trial.
Nevertheless, he was fast to make clear that there’s nonetheless much more that must be executed earlier than robotic telesurgery may very well be executed on reside sufferers and the robotic will principally be used for coaching. It’s also value noting that surgeons should be skilled in robotic surgical procedures earlier than they’ll function on sufferers with robotic know-how.
Nonetheless, there’s immense potential for brand new discoveries and developments in robotic surgical procedures, which may disrupt the healthcare industries enormously sooner or later.
Rehabilitative and AI robots on the rise
Robots have additionally turn into extra widespread 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 presently 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 taking part in train video games, to which the robotic evaluates their progress and transmits the data to the therapists.
One other kind of robotic that’s turning into extra widespread are Synthetic Intelligence (AI) robots. Whereas this idea isn’t new for most people, they’ve revolutionised many established industries comparable to aviation worldwide.
For instance, in Huge Hero 6, Baymax is programmed by a number of information chips, together with his healthcare chip that’s primarily based 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 skilled 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 Shiny 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 reveals a well-adjusted interplay between people and robots.
Using Nadine, a humanoid robotic, has helped to enhance their cognitive operate, 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 world wide 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 comparable to AI.
That being stated, the automation of duties carried out by robots doesn’t imply that all the healthcare workforce shall be changed totally. As an alternative, robots and robotic know-how are taking part in a supporting position in fulfilling the duties of medical doctors and nurses. Within the case of surgeons, they’re utilizing robots as a ‘instrument’ to carry out much less invasive surgical procedures on their sufferers.
Therefore, this additionally ascertains that robotics will proceed to carry constructive 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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