From Surgeries To Keeping Company: The Place Of Robots In Healthcare

Assisting surgeries, disinfecting rooms, dispensing medication, keeping company: believe it or not these are the tasks medical robots will soon undertake in hospitals, pharmacies, or your nearest doctor's office. These new 'colleagues' will definitely make a difference in every field of medicine. Here's our overview to understand robotics in healthcare better so that everyone can prepare for the appearance of mechanic helpers in medical facilities.

One important notice as a prelude to this topic. In many people's minds - unconsciously - artificial intelligence and robots get mixed up: when they hear about AI, they automatically imagine robots. However, the two are not (necessarily) the same: the 'brain' is in the software, the robot is just an actuator. Most of the below examples are not intelligent, not by human standards, nor even at the problem-solving level of large language models.

Metallic allies for the benefit of the vulnerable

While there are concerns about machines replacing people in the workforce, we believe there are advantages to the renewal of the distribution of tasks. Machines don't need sleep or food, don't have prejudices, and definitely won't grunt about why they need to complete the same monotonous tasks for the thousandth time - for example washing up to the hospital floor or bringing medicine up the 10th floor.

Thus, we could imagine how healthcare robots could take over administrative and/or monotonous tasks that people like to skip anyway; while medical professionals, doctors, and nurses can truly devote their precious time to the job that they signed up for - caring for the sick and vulnerable.

With some preparation and forethought, we can make sure the human touch stays relevant in medicine while taking advantage of our metallic allies. For this reason, we collected here the most useful robots in healthcare.

1. Robotic nurses dressing mannequins and bed-bathing patients

Delicate movement, like gently handling an elderly patient is traditionally the most challenging task to robots, who are much faster developing in intellectual tasks than matching humans in fine-motor skills. But there is undoubtedly impressive progress.

It was huge news in 2022 when a two-armed robot could grasp a folded hospital gown and dress a medical mannequin lying on a bed. The technology is still not yet ready for use by people, but it is an experimental step towards artificial nurses in hospitals.

Fan Zhang and Yiannis Demiris at Imperial College London tested their robot in a scenario that closely mimicked the Certified Nursing Assistant test used in US healthcare, in which a trainee nurse has to put an open-backed robe on a person with weak or paralysed arms. Instead of a human, however, they used a mannequin designed for medical training.

The Personal Robotic Lab at the Imperial College has multiple fascinating projects underway, aiming to offer assistance in tasks like bed-bathing patients, or Blueberry, a dual-arm assistive wheelchair that may one day assist in everyday tasks like eating and opening doors.

2. Surgical robots for surgical precision

Surgery is an unpleasant experience at best. The waiting lists can be long depending on available manpower and resources. Thus, surgical robots are the prodigies of surgery. According to market analysis, the industry is about to boom. By 2027, global surgical robotics sales are expected to reach $14.8 billion.

The most commonly known surgical robot is the da Vinci Surgical System, and believe it or not, it was introduced almost 25 years ago! It features a magnified 3D high-definition vision system and tiny wristed instruments that bend and rotate to a far greater extent than the human hand. While the surgeon is 100% in control of the robotic system at all times, they can carry out more precise operations than previously thought possible.

The field has developed with lightning speed in recent years, with major new trends and a market with a good number of established players. Clinical use is already accepted, new FDA approvals and new trials are underway targeting new niches, like pediatric surgeries.

3. Blood drawing and disinfector robots help put 'care' back into healthcare

During a hospital stay, patients interact with nurses the most. Like Shiva, the eight-armed Indian goddess, they are there, usually in 12-hour shifts, to draw blood, check your vital signs, monitor your condition and take care of your hygiene if needed. They are often overwhelmed by physically and mentally daunting tasks, and the result is often an unpleasant experience for everyone involved.

Robotic nurses will help carry this burden in the future. They are designed to be able to carry out repetitive and monotonous tasks, so human staff can have more energy to deal with issues that require human decision-making skills, creativity, and most of all, care and empathy.

A few years ago, we wrote about Veebot, a robot capable of drawing blood quickly and effectively. Since then, the concept has become a reality. In 2022, Vitestro announced their ‘Autonomous blood drawing device’, which has performed 1500 blood draws on over 1000 patients. They have started a large-scale clinical trial involving 10,000 patients, expected to last two years, with plans to obtain CE marking by the end of 2024.

Autonomous mobile delivery robots might also become the favorite of nurses. These can carry around a multitude of racks, carts, or bins up to 500 kilograms in the form of medications, laboratory specimens, or other sensitive materials - so the hospital staff can do other, more important assignments. And when it's done, the robot returns to the charging dock for a sip of energy, waiting for the next job.

4. Robotic assistance for a better life

But robotics in healthcare means so much more than drawing blood or carrying around racks. With remote-controlled medical robots, caretakers can interact with their patients, check on their living conditions and the need for further appointments. This would help efficiency a great deal by eliminating time-consuming home visits. We have seen a number of examples, Canada experimenting with robot-comrades since the 2016 introduction of Ludwig, and some elderly care facilities in Ireland introducing Stevie to their residents. And we could go on and on with the examples of social robots involved in elderly care.

A human-sized, smiling robot combines the very best in cutting-edge technology and human touch to provide frequent check-ins and non-medical care for residents in long-term care settings. By doing so, it reduces the costs of care while raising the patient satisfaction index by simply being there for the elderly all the time.

5. Telemedical network for increasing accessibility

Chances are you have been in a situation before where, if an accident were to happen, medical professionals would not have been able to reach you in time. To some of us in the developed world, it’s a rare occurrence. But even in 2024, millions live outside the reach of conventional emergency services be it in Vanuatu or the Inuit communities up North in Canada.

With Teladoc, Doctor on Demand, Health Tap, or American Well patients in remote areas have access to high-quality emergency consultations for stroke, cardiovascular, dermatological problems, or any other complaints. On the patient’s side, it can be accessed on a tablet or personal computer, and clinicians can also use the same type of device as best suits their needs.

6. The power of exoskeletons

Rather than move around independently to clean surfaces or handle deliveries, exoskeletons wrap around the user’s body to support them physically. This offers tremendous assistance to those with disabled limbs, and rehabilitation is where exoskeletons initially made much progress in healthcare.

California-based Ekso Bionics is one of the best-known companies that develop bionic suits to provide power to the upper and lower body of patients with spinal cord injury, stroke, and acquired brain injuries. 

Exoskeletons started finding their place in healthcare systems. In 2023 ReWalk (now called Lifeward) announced that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized a rule for reinbursing their exoskeleton technology, which was followed by another similar announcement from Ekso Bionics. We can expect further announcements to come, as there are over a dozen approved exoskeletons on the FDA’s list.

While still relatively niche, the exoskeleton market has expanded in recent years. The Exoskeleton Report last updated its report in 2021, which listed 118 companies worldwide working on 172 exoskeletons that were on sale or soon to be commercialized. Their directory listed 67 medical exoskeleton companies in 2024, some definitely surprising. It represents a significant rise from the start of 2020, which registered 80 such companies.

You have seen them in movies, taken advantage of them in video games and now they are here for real: exoskeletons. For example, a gait-training exoskeleton suit helped Matt Ficarra, paralysed from the chest down, walk down the aisle on his wedding day. But nothing stands as powerful a statement as the example of Kevin Piette, a French para-athlete, who became an Olympic torchbearer wearing a self-balancing exoskeleton developed by France’s Wandercraft – a company that already has regulatory-approved robotic structures. In his "civilian" life Piette works as an exoskeleton pilot, helping the company with product development.

7. Robots in the supply chain

Medical robots can not only undertake monotonous and repetitive tasks but also those that are potentially dangerous for humans - such as moving heavy boxes or testing chemical protection clothing.

Beyond robots that could be placed in situations potentially harmful to humans, robotics could have a big impact on pharmaceutical distribution chains, too.

Robotic medical dispenser systems, medication management solutions help any given facility “right-size” its system for its volume. It is also an emerging best practice that these robots are designed with robust data mining capabilities, so pharmacies can gain valuable insights about their traffic and efficiency all the time. If medical robots were used for such tasks, pharmacists would have the time and the incentive to participate in the social aspect of healing: educate people about preventive measures, give practical advice, and therefore make sure that healthcare truly becomes caring.

8. Robots disinfecting hospital rooms

Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are an unfortunate consequence that anyone can be exposed to when admitted to or even visiting a hospital. In the U.S., the CDC estimates that 1 in 31 patients has at least one infection associated with their hospital care. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found in 2020 that 17.6% of COVID-19 infections were likely due to HAIs in England. With the help of UV disinfection medical robots, we can reduce these numbers significantly. 

Studies have shown that UV-C can reduce the amount of live coronavirus on surfaces by 99.7% in 30 seconds and 99.9% of airborne coronaviruses in about 25 minutes. And several companies are coupling UV-C with robots which are themselves impervious to infections. Danish company UVD Robots shipped hundreds of its disinfectant robots around the world during the pandemic. 

Another disinfectant robot, Violet, can completely disinfect a CT scanner room in 15 minutes; a procedure that would take a human radiographer up to 60 minutes. Xenex says that its LightStrike UV disinfection robots can disinfect dozens of rooms per day per robot. 

9. Nanorobots swimming in blood

In 2016, we released an article dedicated to nanotechnology in medicine. In it, we shared examples like “nanoswimmers” developed by researchers that could pave the way for programmed drug delivery. 

However, practically all of the nanorobots came from research labs which were more proof-of-concepts than practical applications. Although news reports around the technology still mostly revolve around the theoretical/conceptual aspects, you can also find promising initiatives with good early results, like these cancer-killing nanobots tested in mice.

This is how digital health technologies often evolve: from conceptual stages in labs, through various iterations and testing stages before rolling out to a wider audience.

With the emergence of digestibles and digital pills, we get closer to nanorobots step by step. On that front: researchers from the Max Planck Institute have been experimenting with exceptionally micro-sized – smaller than a millimeter – robots that literally swim through your bodily fluids and could be used to deliver drugs or other medical relief in a highly targeted way. These scallop-like microbots are designed to swim through non-Newtonian fluids, like your bloodstream, around your lymphatic system, or across the slippery goo on the surface of your eyeballs.

The origami robot, despite its size, is just as impressive as a super-strong carrier one. When swallowed, the capsule containing it dissolves in the patient’s stomach and unfolds itself. Controlled by a technician with the help of magnetic fields it can patch up wounds in the stomach lining or safely remove foreign items such as swallowed toys.

10. Social companion robots to cheer up and keep you company

With the advancement of robotics and artificial intelligence, social companion robots started to take shape: these human or animal-shaped, smaller or bigger mechanic creatures are able to carry out different tasks and have interactions with humans and their environment. In the future, they might become every parent’s little helper in the kitchen, might support the guard dog in keeping the house safe, might teach the children and be their companion and support the elderly, from reminding them to take their medication to keep them company when they feel lonely.

Some early examples on the market, like Pepper or Jibo sadly went out of business due to weak demand, while others still have exorbitant price tags, like the therapeutic robot Paro, which looks like a seal and costs a fortune, or Buddy, which also carries a hefty price tag.

Some of these pioneers had touch sensors, cameras, and microphones, thus their owners could get into discussions with them, ask them to find a great concert for that night or just remind them about their medications.

Small and big, smiley and faceless, surgical and pharma dispensing ones: robotics moves in all shapes and forms with big leaps into healthcare. That might be scary for many, but they have the potential to do good: to bring medical care to regions where there is none to be found; to make the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals cheaper and more efficient; to lighten the load of medical professionals; to help people walk again.

To reap the benefits and avoid the potential dangers of such a technological revolution, we need to keep ourselves informed about the strides that science makes so that we can better prepare and adapt to the not-so-distant future where medical robots play a crucial role and work closely with us.