SAN FRANCISCO: Long maligned as job-stealers and aspiring overlords, robots are being increasingly relied on as fast, efficient, contagion-proof champions in the war against the deadly coronavirus.
One team of robots temporarily cared for patients in a makeshift hospital in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began.
Meals were served, temperatures taken and communications handled by machines, one of them named “Cloud Ginger” by its maker CloudMinds, which has operations in Beijing and California.
“It provided useful information, conversational engagement, entertainment with dancing, and even led patients through stretching exercises,” CloudMinds President Karl Zhao said of the humanoid robot.
“The smart field hospital was completely run by robots.”
BACKGROUND
Patients in hospitals in some countries already meet with robots for consultations usually done by doctors via videoconference. Some consultation robots even tend to the classic checkup task of listening to patients’ lungs as they breathe.
A small medical team remotely controlled the field hospital robots. Patients wore wristbands that gathered blood pressure and other vital data.
The smart clinic only handled patients for a few days, but it foreshadowed a future in which robots tend to patients with contagious diseases while health workers manage from safe distances.
Patients in hospitals in Thailand, Israel and elsewhere meet with robots for consultations done by doctors via videoconference. Some consultation robots even tend to the classic checkup task of listening to patients’ lungs as they breathe.
Alexandra Hospital in Singapore will use a robot called BeamPro to deliver medicine and meals to patients with coronavirus or those suspected to be infected. Doctors and nurses can control the robot by using a computer from outside the room, and can hold conversations with the patient via the screen and camera.
The robot reduces the number of “touch points” with patients who are isolated, thereby reducing risk for health-care workers.
Robotic machines can also be sent to scan for the presence of the virus, such as when the Diamond Princess cruise ship cabins were checked for safety weeks after infected passengers were evacuated, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.
