“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you price 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 questioned 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 the direction of this imaginative and prescient. 

In recent times, Singapore has seen a surge in robots and robotic expertise being utilized in numerous industries, together with the healthcare trade. 

From relieving manpower shortages to interacting with sufferers, here’s a deep dive into how robots and robotic expertise are utilized in Singapore’s healthcare ecosystems. 

A colleague to human nurses

Lately, there was a surge of improvements utilizing robotic expertise to deal with manpower shortages worldwide, particularly in the course of the world COVID-19 pandemic which put immense stress on healthcare employees in Singapore. 

A hospital no stranger to robots is Changi Common Hospital (CGH), as they integrated robotic expertise 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 12 months: MEDi – a medication 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 resembling dressing wounds and bedside care. 

“We wished to harness the usage of robotics to discover a extra modern answer to optimise our manpower, sources and in addition 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 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 accordance with an article by The Straits Instances, robotic assistants have the flexibility to “exchange” two nurses, cementing the necessity for robots to assist jobs missing in manpower.  

Except for delivering medicines and snacks to sufferers, Florence additionally helps to measure the affected person’s respiratory patterns and very important indicators via its digital camera, sensors and pulse oximeter. 

Reducing dangers from surgical procedures

Beforehand, sufferers who require surgical procedures throughout totally different physique techniques 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 threat of infections whereas on the hospital.

Nonetheless lately, now we have seen extra hospitals and medical establishments utilizing robotic expertise such because the Da Vinci XI robotic to conduct extra minimally invasive surgical procedures throughout a number of physique techniques, 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 typical 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 just a few 1cm cuts wanted with the robotic,” mentioned 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 expertise. The NUS Yong Bathroom 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. 

Nonetheless, as with every process remotely performed comes the chance of community disconnecting mid-surgery, in addition to time lags. In accordance with Professor Jimmy So, Head and Senior Guide, Division of Common Surgical procedure (Higher Gastrointestinal Surgical procedure), Division of Surgical procedure at NUH, the time lags had been minimal and performed safely in the course of the trial.  

Nonetheless, he was fast to make clear that there’s nonetheless much more that must be achieved earlier than robotic telesurgery may very well be achieved on reside sufferers and the robotic will principally be used for coaching. Additionally it is value noting that surgeons must be educated in robotic surgical procedures earlier than they will function on sufferers with robotic expertise. 

Nonetheless, there may be immense potential for brand new discoveries and developments in robotic surgical procedures, which might disrupt the healthcare industries vastly sooner or later.

Rehabilitative and AI robots on the rise

Robots have additionally grow to be 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 knowledge to the therapists. 

One other kind of robotic that’s changing into extra widespread are Synthetic Intelligence (AI) robots. Whereas this idea just isn’t new for most of the people, they’ve revolutionised many established industries resembling aviation worldwide. 

For instance, in Huge 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 the direction of sufferers. 

One notable instance is Nadine – an AI robotic created by Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, a robotic knowledgeable 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 Residence, an aged house in Singapore in 2020. 

Lim Hwee Er, Director and Principal OT marketing consultant at Goshen Consultancy Companies 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 marketing consultant at Goshen Consultancy Companies

Extra robots to come back?

Robots and robotic expertise have proven super promise to revolutionise healthcare, with extra healthcare establishments around the globe adopting and experimenting with them. Furthermore, the general potential of robots revolutionising healthcare and drugs has proven to exponentially improve when mixed with new applied sciences resembling AI. 

That being mentioned, the automation of duties carried out by robots doesn’t imply that your complete healthcare workforce will likely be changed solely. As a substitute, robots and robotic expertise are taking part in a supporting position in fulfilling the tasks of medical doctors and nurses. Within the case of surgeons, they’re utilizing robots as a ‘device’ 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 wouldn’t have to fret about dwelling in a dystopian society harking back to ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Matrix’. 

Featured Picture Credit score: Nationwide College Well being System (NUHS)