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| Robots Become Nurses | | Nurse.com Hace 9 meses (22/03/2008 18:27:31) |  |
 (*)Janet Boivin, RN, and Scott Williams
Monday March 10, 2008
Let’s be clear about one thing: Robots will never replace nurses. Even the most optimistic roboticists recognize that no combination of metallic parts, microchips, and binary files could ever replace the empathetic touch or clinical intuition of a human nurse.
But researchers who believe that R2-D2 and C-3P0 of “Star Wars” fame and the rogue humanoids in the movie “I, Robot” are more than just fantasy say robotic devices will one day help nurses work more efficiently and may even help them remain in the profession as they age.
“Robots are going to be your friend,” says Charlie Kemp, PhD, assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and director of the Center for Healthcare Robotics in Atlanta. “There is an enormous opportunity for robots in health care, with many ways for them to increase efficiency and quality across the board. Helping nurses do their job is one of those ways.”
Robots have difficulty operating in complex and unpredictable work environments such as hospitals. Current research focuses on designing robots that will do many of the routine and often mundane — but essential — tasks associated with nursing care, such as feeding and lifting patients. Future robots may one day be able to take and monitor patients’ vital signs instead of a nurse, but they are far from having a nurse’s ability to synthesize the information, clinically assess what it means, and physically take action. Instead of acting on their own, robots will serve as assistants and enable nurses to lend their expertise to remote areas without physically traveling to those locations.
Already, courier robots resembling small, mobile cabinets or carts are ferrying linens, medications, laboratory samples, supplies, and other equipment throughout hospitals without bumping into patients, visitors, or healthcare staff. They go by the names TUG, RoboCart, and HelpMate.
The U.S. Department of Defense approved a contract to develop a multitasking robotic nursing assistant (RNAs). The robot would be able to lift combat-wounded soldiers out of bed, deliver supplies, and offer telepresence capabilities for off-site healthcare staff.
“The nurse would guide the robot and tell it when to start and stop,” says Aaron Edsinger, PhD, a roboticist working with the companies designing the Phase I prototype for the Army.
Jessica Pedersen, owner and chief operating officer of RE2 Inc., says she would like RNAs to be able to autonomously navigate hospital or nursing home halls when summoned by a nurse. Other researchers are exploring whether robots can help people who have had strokes perform their physical therapy more effectively to improve their muscle strength and flexibility.
The arena in which healthcare robots have been most successful thus far is the OR and includes the use of the well-known DaVinci surgical robotic system. Robotics help surgeons perform laparoscopic and thorascopic surgeries and, in recent years, heart surgery. The advantages of using robots in surgeries includes decreased pain, faster recovery, shorter hospital stays, fewer complications, and reduced costs.
However, Penelope, the surgical robotic assistant who debuted with promise in New York in 2005, was never integrated into the elite world of the surgical suite because it was shunned by nurses and doctors and because of technical difficulties, says creator Michael Treat, MD, chairman of RST Inc. and associate professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University. He is working on a new role for Penelope in central supply where it could be programmed to wash, sterilize, and count surgical instruments. Treat anticipates Penelope will be more welcome in central supply but is still hoping it will eventually find its place in the OR.
(*)Janet Boivin, RN, is editorial director for Nursing Spectrum/NurseWeek national features. Scott Williams is a freelance writer based in Texas. To comment, e-mail editorNTL@gannetthg.com.
From: include.nurse.com
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Researcher Judith T. Matthews, RN, PhD, a nursing professor at the University of Pittsburgh, is determining whether robots can make life easier for residents in long-term care facilities and the elderly and disabled who are living at home.
