According to Azeta et al. (2017), robotics in healthcare refers to the use of robots in the provision of healthcare services. This represents an opportunity that provides medical assistance to many people who seek quality healthcare. Robots have been extensively used in healthcare to assist patients suffering from various health conditions such as the motor, cognitive, and sensory impairments. Robots also assist injured or sick individuals and provide support to healthcare staff as well as caregivers. The use of robots is attributed to major impacts in the healthcare field. Some of these impacts include relieving healthcare providers from tasks and duties which would otherwise hinder them from focusing on more important and pressing issues and responsibilities. Robots help in reducing the cost of medical care and have led to improved safety for medical procedures. They are used to carry out surgical procedures in limited spaces and help in ferrying hazardous materials or substances within healthcare facilities (Azeta et al., 2017). They also provide other services such as disinfection of surgical and patient rooms which lowers risk to medical staff and patients, provision of laboratory services, and preparation and dispensing of drugs in pharmacological facilities. In nursing, robotic medical assistants help in monitoring patients’ vital signs and statistics and provide alerts to nurses human assistance is required by the patient (Azeta et al., 2017). This makes it possible for nurses to attend to many patients at the same time. They also assistance to nurses to keep patients records by entering information automatically into the electronic health records.
Example of Robotics in Healthcare
There are several examples of robotics in healthcare. The commonly used robotics in healthcare includes robotic surgical precision, robotic assistance, robotic exoskeletons, robotic companions, pharmabotics, and disinfectant robots (Azeta et al., 2017). Surgical procedures represent are associated with unpleasant experience and the length of the waiting list may prove overwhelming given the limited nature of the available resources and manpower. Robotic surgical provision using DaVinci has been of great help in alleviating the challenges associated with inadequate resources and manpower (Azeta et al., 2017). It has been utilized in various surgical procedures which include the neck, head, and urologic surgery. During the procedure, the surgeon is always in charge and in full control while the robotic machine is utilized to make precise and smaller incisions to reach and access the intended problem parts due to its greater flexibility.
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There is no healthcare cadre that interacts more with hospitalized patients than nurses. This means that they sometimes become overwhelmed with various tasks that provide them with unpleasant experiences. This has made it necessary seek assistance from robotic nurses who will help to ease this burden as they are designed to perform repetitive tasks allowing human nurses to focus on those tasks that need human skills, empathy, and decision-making ability(Azeta et al., 2017). Remote-controlled robots enable nurses and caretakers to easily interact with their clients or patients, assess their living, and the necessity for further check-ups and appointments (Hall et al., 2017). This will lead to increased efficiency in the provision of healthcare services.
Another application of robots in healthcare involves the use of exoskeletons in making injured or paralyzed people to stand up and walk. They are also used in rehabilitating spinal cord injury or stroke patients and enable nurses to support or lift elderly clients through robotic strength enhancement.
One of the leading causes of death in the United States is nosocomial infections (Azeta et al., 2017). This has led to increased demand for disinfectant robots in healthcare. As a result, Xenex Company is known to produce unique robots which posses the ability to disinfect likely contaminated areas in healthcare facilities more efficiently and quickly compared to other disinfecting devices. The robots use high-intensity UV light to cause cellular damage to common pathogenic microorganisms. This reduces the danger associated with nosocomial infections. Through this, the workload facing healthcare staff is significantly reduced hence a friendlier working environment.
Pharmabotics form another example of robotics in healthcare. Just like nurses, pharmacists are faced with overwhelming workloads that may be lessened by the use of robots. This is seen in the lifting of heavy loads and faster information processing with more accuracy and precision. As a result, it is able to make appropriate recommendations for quality healthcare. ATM-like pharmabotic drug dispensers will allow patients to easily access drug prescriptions any time of the day (Hall et al., 2017). This will allow pharmacists to take part in the social aspect of healthcare such as providing education on preventive measures. Companion robots can be used to help in mental health therapies and in alleviating loneliness. Some of the presently existing examples of companion robots are Pepper, Jibo, Buddy, and Paro (Hall et al., 2017). The robots may have microphones, cameras, and touch sensors to enable them to communicate with their owners or alert the patients to take their medicines.
Personal Experience
My personal experience about robotics is that most of the robots in the US healthcare mostly fall into two types. Those that have replaced the work that was previously done by human staff and those that are telemedicine-based that act as a link between patients and healthcare providers something that was non-existent (Hall et al., 2017). They are commonly found in big medical-academic facilities and centers with enough budget for operational mobility and resources to invest and maintain the technology (Hall et al., 2017). In these facilities and centers, some of the robots used in the betterment of healthcare are Toyota health’s assistants and Bestic® Arms that are used to assist patients to regain their ability to walk and with meals respectively (Hall et al., 2017). Another common experience as long as robotics in healthcare is concerned is the now common use of Tugs® which is a mobile robot in various hospitals in moving laboratory results, linens, and drugs from one floor to another replacing the runners who previously performed these tasks (Lee, 2013).
The positive aspect of this experience is that the use of robots has really helped to improve healthcare services as the use of robots is attributed to greater speed, accuracy, and precision. This has led to high-quality healthcare services and hence better health outcomes. This experience can be improved even more by improving the privacy aspect which has led to concerns (Hall et al., 2017). One negative aspect of this experience is that some of the robots used require high budgets, operational mobility, and enough resources to own and utilize them. This means that only healthcare facilities with adequate resources can own and use them. This can be improved by producing less expensive and affordable robots to enable small and medium healthcare facilities with inadequate resources to acquire and use them.
Conclusion
In summary, robotics in healthcare refers to the use of robots in to help in providing health services. Currently, there exists a wide range of robotic sin healthcare and this has led to improved and quality healthcare. The increased application of robots in healthcare means that as individuals we are exposed to a wide range of personal experiences both with positive and negative aspects. This prompts us to think of ways to improve these experiences in an attempt to achieve quality healthcare. The application of robots in enhancing healthcare has led to a newfound excitement because of the many exciting applications of robots to improve the quality of health services. However, it must be remembered that acquiring these robots is costly and may add to the already existing economic and social inequalities. Additionally, their use has led to various concerns and more importantly the privacy aspect which needs to be improved.
References
Azeta, J., Bolu, C., Abioye, A. A., & Oyawale, F. A. (2017). A review on humanoid robotics in healthcare.
Hall, A. K., Backonja, U., Painter, I., Cakmak, M., Sung, M., Lau, T., ... & Demiris, G. (2017). Acceptance and perceived usefulness of robots to assist with activities of daily living and healthcare tasks. Assistive Technology, 1-8.
