How Robodoctors Are Shaping the Future of Healthcare
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Robotics have come a long way in recent years. With advancements in sensor technology, responsive materials, human-machine interface (HMI), artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced software algorithms, robots are becoming more versatile. They are taking many more forms now, from robotic arms to autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and humanoid robots.
Advancements in hardware and software have yielded robots that are much more responsive and interactive to their surroundings, reacting to sudden changes in their vicinity in more intelligent ways. As advanced robots are starting to gain use in many industries, including humanoid robots with sophisticated grasping abilities, we are starting to see a growing interest in the healthcare sector toward robotic doctors (robodoctors). Part of this interest includes using robots as a tool to provide routine healthcare services, predict healthcare emergencies, respond to disasters, and perform complex medical procedures. In this blog, we look closer at how these robodoctors are making their way into the medical field.
The World’s First AI Hospital
In 2024, researchers from Tsinghua University in China launched the world's first AI hospital―a hospital staffed by AI doctors and nurses to diagnose, treat, and monitor patients. The "clinical staff" are autonomous agents driven by large language models (LLMs). So far, the hospital consists of four AI nurses[1] and 42 AI doctors across 21 specialties, with each specialty trained in over ten common conditions.[2] The hospital’s AI agents are trained to autonomously interact with patients from the initial consultation and throughout patient care, clinical diagnosis, and follow-up.
The AI hospital has two main goals. The first is to use AI doctors equipped with expert medical knowledge gained from trained datasets to provide affordable and easy access to healthcare, 24/7. The second goal is to offer a virtual medical training environment for students entering healthcare fields. The AI hospital provides a virtual environment—including virtual patients—where students can navigate various medical scenarios to improve their knowledge and skills, and as a result, improve assessments and outcomes with future patients.
The Tsinghua University AI hospital demonstrates how robodoctors are enhancing medical efficiency and revolutionizing healthcare delivery. Streamlining healthcare has been the most significant achievement of this hospital, with the AI doctors capable of diagnosing over 300 diseases and caring for up to 3,000 patients per day. More importantly, the AI hospital is treating high quantities of patients with high quality care, with over 93 percent accuracy based on the MedQA benchmark.[3]
Autonomous Humanoid Robot Doctors and Nurses
Autonomous humanoid robots with advanced AI capabilities are no longer a science fiction concept. The release of the AI-based Sophia humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics in 2016 started a new revolution in humanoid robotics.[4] Thanks to continuous advancements in autonomous humanoid robotics technology, AI-enabled humanoid robots are making their way into the healthcare space. For example, the Beomni humanoid robot has been around since 2022 and has been providing healthcare services for the elderly.[5] Integrating AI into humanoid robots instructs them how to behave more like humans and convey friendly traits for anyone skeptical of being assessed and treated by a machine, helping tackle the looming trust concern over AI implementation across sectors.
In addition to helping in general healthcare scenarios, humanoid robots can be employed in hazardous situations instead of a human doctor who would potentially put their health and safety at risk. For example, when dealing with highly infectious diseases, humanoid robots could treat patients and prevent clinical professionals from contracting and spreading the illness throughout the hospital. was a big issue During the COVID-19 pandemic, the risk to healthcare professionals was a continual hindrance to progress, and robodoctors offer a solution that could help prevent potentially similar situations in the future, as well as more localized epidemics and patients with highly contagious illnesses.[6]
Disaster Response Robotic Doctors
While some humanoid robots are well-suited for treating patients in hospital and clinical settings, more vehicular-based robodoctors have made great strides in assisting with disaster scenarios. Recently, the University of Sheffield in the UK developed a new mobile robotic platform that combines the movement capabilities of a controlled uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) with virtual reality (VR) technology to allow medics to assess the severity of casualties in hazardous environments where medical staff would be at risk. While ensuring their safety, the robot allows medics to perform remote triage from a safe distance.
The UGV robot has two robotic arms to remotely operate medical tools and perform initial assessments on patients in the field—checking heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure—and even administer pain relief using an auto-injector and perform a palpation of the abdomen. All the real-time data is transmitted back to the operator so medical staff can make an informed decision about their medical plan. The next stage in this disaster response robotic doctor is to further develop the technology into a large-scale integrated medical emergency platform that can be rapidly deployed to disaster zones with multiple casualties.[7]
In-Home Robodoctors
In-home robodoctors are emerging as a medical application as well. Telemedicine has been growing in popularity since the pandemic, but a new robot out of National Taipei University, Taiwan, is autonomously examining and diagnosing people inside their homes. This robodoctor is equipped with a visual recognition system that turns the robot’s diagnostic system on when a patient approaches. The patient’s medical data can be retrieved before diagnosis, and the robot can take this into consideration using their expert-level knowledge obtained through training alongside medical professionals.
The robot has an arm containing an embedded heart sensor and thermometer that extends out when a physical examination commences. Alongside giving direct advice and storing the results of the diagnosis to the cloud for clinicians to access, the robodoctor can coordinate with human doctors in a hospital via telemedicine communications so that the doctor can assist with further diagnosis.
Apart from general health checks, the in-home robodoctor has been trained to perform skin examinations when patients have an unknown pox or skin condition. The streamlined medical care provided by these in-home robodoctors means patients can save themselves from extended waiting times at the hospital or clinic.[8]
Robotic Surgery
Beyond autonomous and independent robodoctors, robots now assist surgeons during surgical procedures. In these robot-assisted procedures, the surgeon controls the robotic arm holding the surgical instruments by using a controller and a viewing screen. This application is often used for minimally invasive procedures, as it allows smaller incisions to be made than if done by hand. Surgical robots allow more precise operations to take place because robotic arms require less space inside the body during the procedure, meaning less disruption to the internal tissues and organs. The surgeon always remains in control and an endoscope camera is fed into the incision hole alongside the robotic arm to ensure the surgeon has the necessary visibility throughout the procedure.
Robotic arms are used by surgeons for both small and large surgical procedures, including:[9],[10]
- Appendectomy
- Colectomy
- Epilepsy surgery
- Gallbladder removal
- Gastric bypass
- Hernia repair
- Hysterectomy
- Mitral valve repair
- Pancreatectomy
- Brain and spinal surgery
- Cardiothoracic surgery
- General surgery
- Gynaecologic surgery
- Endometriosis
- Head and Neck (Transoral) surgery
- Urologic surgery
Conclusion
Both robotics and AI have been progressing at a significant rate in recent years and now their wide applications include various medical solutions. Even though the healthcare sector is more tightly regulated than other industries, there have already been a number robodoctors developed that are making a clinical impact today. There’s still plenty of work to be done to improve the robustness and versatility of robodoctors, but as both hardware and software continue to advance, the number of robodoctors involved in everyday healthcare is only going to increase. This growth will provide essential care to people who need access to regular or immediate care services, especially as waiting times and costs continue to increase in many healthcare systems around the world.
Sources
[1]https://med-tech.world/news/china-worlds-first-ai-hospital-milestone-in-healthcare-innovation/
[2] https://med-tech.world/news/chinas-ai-hospital-transforming-healthcare/
[3] https://rysysthtechnologies.com/insights/chinas-breakthrough-ai-agent-hospital
[6]https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1420312/full
[9] https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/robotic-surgery/what-robotic-surgery
[10] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22178-robotic-surgery