Running head: ROBOTS IN HEALTHCARE 1

Raghad Al-Shawakri

104166233

Referencing Assignment

6-85-119-01 Technical Communications

June 6th 2017
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Robots in Healthcare

The healthy life of the modern times can be closely connected to robots and

innovative technologies in the field of healthcare, which have a direct impact on the patient

care. For example, robots can be utilized in order to sterilize the rooms and operating suites in

the hospitals, which results in the decreased risk not only for the clients but for the workers in

the clinical setting as well. Moreover, another example of robots helping to improve healthy

life of people is their operation in research laboratories where they take samples and

distribute, examine, and stock the samples for the researchers (Bogue, 2011). By doing so,

the robots in healthcare eliminate a broad variety of risks, for example, not finding the vein of

the patient when he or she comes in to give a blood sample. The robots in the laboratories are

expected to find the correct vein and take the blood sample with less discomfort and

nervousness for the clients. Furthermore, robots also arrange and hand out medicines in

pharmacological laboratories. In bigger healthcare organizations, robots help to transport bed

linens and from time to time food for the patients in different parts of the hospital, which

simplifies the processes of patient care for the medical staff of the hospital and allows them to

focus completely on the rehabilitation of the patient (Robinson, MacDonald, & Broadbent,

2014).

In addition, with the intention of appealing to the general population, robot personal

assistants sometimes are manufactured with more friendly appearance; as a result, the

researchers of robotic assistance in Japan have devoted their efforts to making the robots

more people-friendly. For instance, of the Japanese robotic innovations, a robot named Paro,

is able to react to human speech (Broadbent et. al., 2010). One more example of robotic

personal assistant looks like a human and is utilized in order to assist with patient care,

improvement of socialization skills and for preparation of the medical staff, which is the main
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strength of the robots in healthcare. The main weakness is that people fear that robots will

completely replace them in the course of time.

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References

Bogue, R. (2011). Robots in healthcare. Industrial Robot: An International Journal, 38(3),

218-223.

Broadbent, E., Kuo, I. H., Lee, Y. I., Rabindran, J., Kerse, N., Stafford, R., & MacDonald, B.

A. (2010). Attitudes and reactions to a healthcare robot. Telemedicine and e-Health,

16(5), 608-613.

Robinson, H., MacDonald, B., & Broadbent, E. (2014). The role of healthcare robots for

older people at home: a review. International Journal of Social Robotics, 6(4), 575-

591.