With the development of science and technology and the improvement of medical demand, robots and AI are getting closer to our lives, and the upgrading of the medical industry will follow.
In the case of insufficient medical manpower, robots can not only share part of the complicated, trivial, and fixed administrative tasks, but also assist medical staff in performing operations, reducing the increased risk of errors due to excessive fatigue and other reasons.
The epidemic accelerates the development of the global robot market
The new crown pneumonia epidemic has driven "zero-touch" demand in various industries, and "machines for labor" has become one of the main trends. Most robots have two modes of "remote control" and "autonomous operation". Through the complementarity of these two modes, they can increase productivity, diversify their working methods, and achieve zero-touch, unmanned demand, and improve the quality of life.
According to statistics from Crunchbase, a new fundraising platform, the epidemic has accelerated the investment of venture capital companies in the field of robotics. In 2020, the robot field will raise funds of US$5.56 billion. The three fields of health care, logistics and transportation, and manufacturing alone account for 79% of the total investment, becoming the three most important markets for robot research and development.
Mordor Intelligence released a report in 2018 and pointed out that the global surgical robot market reached US$3.56 billion in 2017, of which the United States was the largest market with a market share of 57.7%, followed by Europe at 24% and Asia at 15.2%. As the surgical robot market enters the growth phase, Mordor Intelligence estimates that in the next few years there will be a growth of up to 21.9%, and the overall scale will reach 10.97 billion U.S. dollars by 2023.
Recently, there are more and more examples that robots should be brave in the medical industry. In order to increase the rate of vaccine delivery, Thailand has launched a robotic arm to extract vaccines; CMR Surgical has developed a surgical robot that is lighter and more flexible than the Da Vinci robotic arm; the United Kingdom and China have medical robots and anti-epidemic robots to share the workload of medical personnel.
Thailand's robotic arm is on the battlefield, and the available vaccines increase by 20%
According to Reuters, due to the recent severe epidemic in Thailand, in order to speed up domestic vaccination and solve the dilemma of vaccine supply being lower than demand, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand has developed an automatic vaccine extraction machine that can be precise and fast. , Dispense AZ vaccine into syringes safely.
Research leader Juthamas Ratanavaraporn said that this automatic vaccine extraction robotic arm can draw 12 doses of vaccine from the AZ vaccine bottle within 4 minutes, which is 2 more doses than the 10 doses previously drawn manually. This also means that the original AZ vaccine was only able to supply 1 million people. By replacing manpower with machines, 1.2 million people can be supplied. "Vaccines are limited, but we will increase the vaccination rate by 20%, which is extremely beneficial to the country. fact."
As the demand for vaccine administration increases, medical staff will use low residual empty needles (LDSS) to avoid waste. Although 12 doses can be drawn, it is very labor intensive and requires high-level skills to operate accurately. The use of robotic arms can not only reduce human error, but also reduce the workload of medical staff. This robotic arm is currently in operation in the university's vaccine center and plans to produce a large number of medical staff to support the vaccination center.
CMR Surgical develops a minimally invasive surgical robot, defeating Leonardo in lightness
According to a report by Grand View Research in May 2021, the surgical robot market has reached US$2.3 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to US$3.57 billion this year.
Founded in 2014, CMR Surgical developed the minimally invasive surgical robot system Versius, and successfully surpassed the Da Vinci robot to become the world's lightest surgical robot, with a volume of only one-third of the Da Vinci robot.
In addition, Versius is more ergonomic and mobile than Da Vinci, allowing surgeons to perform operations at any angle, breaking the dilemma of traditional laparoscopic surgery, such as colorectal surgery, ear, nose and For throat surgery, Versius can make small local incisions to shorten the recovery period of the patient's surgery.
According to a TechCrunch report, CMR Surgical announced in June this year that it had received a round D equity investment of approximately US$600 million. In addition to setting the highest fundraising case in medical technology in history, the outside world is also optimistic that CMR Surgical will have the opportunity to break the monopoly of Da Vinci’s robotics development company Intuitive Surgical. The situation in the surgical robot market.
Rehabilitation robots, medical robots, and epidemic prevention robots have conquered the market
In addition to surgical robots, robots that provide services to patients during the epidemic are also becoming more and more diverse. In 2018, the United Kingdom began to use AGV medical robots in hospitals, which can not only deliver meals, take out garbage, and disinfect, but also assist patients. Bluebotic, a Swiss automated navigation technology company, said that because of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, hospitals in the United States and Italy have also begun to use AGV medical robots to automate the logistics in the hospitals, and medical staff have more time to handle a large number of confirmed cases.
The Rehabilitation Department of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital has improved training equipment and developed an "upper limb rehabilitation robot" that assists patients with stroke, spinal cord injury, central and peripheral nerve injury, completes precise grasping, and can smoothly resume daily life.
In addition, MSI Technology also announced at the end of August that its intelligent anti-epidemic disinfection robot has passed the French global research organization Texcell certification, and its UVGI sterilization system can effectively inhibit the new coronavirus Alpha within 30 seconds.
The Chinese brand UBTECH has also launched an epidemic prevention robot with autonomous navigation function. In addition to ultraviolet light and spray disinfection, it can also take body temperature, check whether to wear a mask, guide evacuation and provide warnings.
In the post-epidemic era, smart medical care will become a trend
Although the epidemic has gradually slowed down compared to last year, the virus has not completely disappeared. Since the beginning of the post-epidemic era, hospitals are still in a state of insufficient manpower. The use of these robots can not only reduce the pressure on medical staff, improve the accuracy of operations, but also reduce the risk of contact diagnosis.
In the future, from rehabilitation services to operating tables, the cooperation between robots and medical staff will be closer and closer, and smart medical care will become an important part of the industry. Appropriately liberating medical staff from repetitive and trivial tasks and devoting them to interactive and groundbreaking disease discussions and medical research can also bring more positive influence to medical treatment.
Article from yahoo