Inside the healthcare industry, robotics is witnessing an increasing uptake in many sectors, including prescription dispensing, rehabilitation, telepresence, medical transportation, sanitation, and neurosurgery. What is more, you can now have your bones cut by a collaborative robot ─ or let’s call it “cobot” as they all do across the medical industry!
Half-Century of Robots in Healthcare
Robotics has been used, on and off, in the healthcare industry over the past 50 years ─ albeit with a somewhat slow uptake. Regardless of the recurrent media hype and intermittent press stories about “robots in medicine”, the situation on the ground has always been less exciting, with no big breakthroughs! The actual number of hospitals using robots has always been small, with generally slow uptake of robots into the healthcare sector.
However, this trend seems to be presently reversed, with robotics beginning to conquer the healthcare industry in multiple areas.
Five Uses for Robots in Medicine
“Because it solves real problems,” said a well-known healthcare expert in reply to the question of why more and more hospitals and medical centers are currently using robotics. Nowadays, robots are being increasingly used in the healthcare industry, especially in the following areas:
1.Neurosurgery
Robots are currently being used in the surgeries performed on the nervous system, especially the brain and spinal cord. Don’t panic! The collaborative robots, in this area, never do the surgery itself, but, rather, are used for placing a digital microscope in the suitable position ─ which makes it possible for neurosurgeons to perfectly view the surgery and thus perform with optimal accuracy.
2.Medical Devices Packaging
The packaging is a perfect application for collaborative robots. Cobots are used in the medical device packaging, doing wonderful jobs in this area. One of the main reasons why robots are perfect here is sterilization. As devices that come into contact with human users should be highly sterilized, there’s always a relative risk of contamination when humans perform the packaging tasks. Therefore, using collaborative robots in this area usually reduces, or removes, the contamination risk factor, creating an entirely germ-free environment, which means more safety for users and patients.
3.Bone Cutting
Sometimes a robot is used in performing laser bone ablation, where part of a patient’s bone is cut to take out a benign tumor. CARLO – abbreviation for Cold Ablation Robot-guided Laser Osteotome – is a medical robot that can cut bone without contact and with cold laser technology.
4.Therapeutic Massage Robots
Even the role of the physiotherapist is sometimes taken by cobots, doing massage! A well-known massage provider uses two UR robots with end effectors that roll over the skin for giving customers a good body massage.
5.Lab automation
All over the world, a large number of lab tests are performed every day. For instance, more than 270 million blood tests were requested in the United Kingdom in 2014! Since lab tests involve numerous repetitive actions, therefore they could, to a great extent, be conducted through cobot automation!
Healthcare Translation Services and the Medical Industry?
Whether we’ll witness a slow or speedy uptake of robotics in the healthcare industry in the near future is still debatable. However, it’s an established fact that for healthcare businesses to move forward into global markets to sell their products and services to new overseas audiences, healthcare translation services are definitely the open sesame to ensuring that their customers and prospects alike fully understand what they are offering. With high-quality, accurate healthcare language services, medical companies will be able to simultaneously satisfy their customers and conform to regulatory standards.
Why Future Trans?
An ISO 17100 certified language services provider, Future Trans has built its success, over the past quarter-century, on 3 pillars: an expert team, who has a long experience in healthcare language services, state-of-the-art technology and a firm commitment to quality.
Contact us today to get a free quote.
