With improved precision and diagnostics power, robots are revolutionizing healthcare.
A brainless physiotherapist!
There’s a possibility your surgeon won’t have a heart if you go to Changi General Hospital in Singapore. You might find cleaners with no lungs and maybe brainless physiotherapists. This is due to the fact that more than 50 employees at Changi General Hospital (CGH) are robots.
Robots have become a vital part of the 1,000-bed hospital’s workforce, according to Selina Seah, Head of the Centre for Healthcare Assistive and Robotics Technology (CHART), which collaborates with CGH to come up with high-tech solutions to healthcare challenges.
The need for robots
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a new need for contactless and distant healthcare solutions, which CHART has been providing since 2015.
With 9 per 100 workers, Singapore already has the highest percentage of industrial robot usage in the world, but this is primarily in the electronics industry. Now, Seah hopes that robots will make healthcare more accessible, affordable with higher quality, and more secure throughout the event of a pandemic.
CHART is attempting to increase productivity with the use of robotics and assistive technology. According to Seah, surgical robots like the Da Vinci Surgical System are among the most well-known in the hospital. These robots assist in less invasive procedures by acting as the eyes of the human surgeon.
Moreover, she added that other robots clean, carry linen or meals, assist with hospital upkeep, aid patient rehabilitation, and even assist with moving patients back into bed outside of operation rooms, helping to minimize the “back-breaking” job that human caregivers do.
Drawbacks
However, according to Seah, integrating robots into the workplace is expensive and demands costly infrastructure. She also mentions that data privacy and security is an issue, noting that hospitals will require strong cybersecurity to avoid hacking.
CGH’s challenges have been rewarding because of the potential to improve efficiency and safety, especially at difficult periods like the Covid-19 pandemic.
