Adoption of robots in India hospitals to grow during and post covid – Livemint

To lessen constant exposure between covid-19 patients and caregivers, and intensify screening, hospitals in India are turning to robots of all kinds. Delhi-based AIIMS hospital has deployed a floor disinfectant and a humanoid robot in covid-19 wards. Fortis Hospital, Bengaluru has also deployed an interactive robot at its entrance to screen everyone, including medical staff, entering the premises.

We have seen an increase in demand for our robots coming from hospitals across India. We are already in talks with several hospitals including Fortis, CloudNine and Max. Some hospitals have shown interest in how robots can be leveraged in the long run," said Rajeev Karwal, founder chairman, Milagrow, the Gurugram based robotics company that made the robots deployed at AIIMS.

According to UK-based data analytics firm, GlobalData, adoption of robots to treat covid-19 patients is expected to grow in India due to shortage of PPE or personal protective equipment.

Universal Robots has also seen demand for cobots or collaborative robots for manufacturing high-quality face masks in government-run assembly lines. Doctors are exploring how cobots can be used to remotely test patients for the virus to lower risks for healthcare workers.

A Jaipur-based hospital is in talks with robotics companies to deploy a robot to deliver food and medicines to covid-19 patients in isolation wards.

The interactive humanoid robot deployed at AIIMS stands 92 cm tall, has cameras and sensors to detect obstacles and can monitor and interact with patients. The second robot deployed at AIIMS can disinfect floor surfaces using sodium hypochlorite solution. Both robots can move autonomously and operate without human intervention.

The robot at Fortis uses face and speech recognition to ask questions and thermal scanners to take temperature reading. Once it has screened and cleared a person, it issues a pass to enter. In case it detects higher body temperature, it will alert the doctors, and patient can consult a hospital doctor directly through the screen on the robot.

The medical industry is especially embracing cobots, which allow humans and robots to work safely together something that is especially crucial in a time like this when human-to-human contact must be limited," said Pradeep David, general manager, South Asia, Universal Robots.

Karwal points out, AIIMS wanted a robot that can prevent healthcare workers from going inside the covid-19 ward too many times, as every time a person goes in and comes out of the ward, they are supposed to change the PPE.

Deploying robots to reduce human contact is being tried in other countries as well. The field hospital in Hongshan Sports Center, Wuhan has deployed multiple robots for almost everything from screening people when they enter hospitals to delivering food and medicine in isolation wards and entertaining patients. They are also being used to spray disinfectants and clean hospital floors.

Robots have been used by hospitals in India before. For instance, it was used in the precision surgery performed by doctors at PGIMER Chandigarh on a two-year-old baby who was born without a food pipe. However, the use has been limited to a few hospitals and tasks. The ongoing crisis has made the world grasp the importance of many of the emerging technologies such as 3D printing, drones and robots.

Although robotic technology is currently expensive for wider adoption across all types of healthcare settings, it is expected to find increasing use in countries such as India due to very less number of healthcare professionals available for more than 1.3 billion population," Bhaskar Vittal, medical devices analyst at GlobalData said in a press statement.

Faisal Kawoosa, founder and chief analysts at techARC points out, going forward hygiene will be very critical, especially at hospitals. This level of hygiene cannot be managed without automation and so-to-say human less intervention. That is when robots will step in.

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Adoption of robots in India hospitals to grow during and post covid - Livemint