Question

Your discussion post is to answer this question: What do you think nursing contributes to health care? How can a robotic system incorporate the clinical judgment that nurses use? Be as creative as you wish!

If you can, listen to the following audio clip from National Nurses United's "Insist on a Registered Nurse" campaign:
https://soundcloud.com/national-nurses-united/radio-ad-robocare

While this is an attempt at humor about a serious situation, it drives a fundamental question: What would health care be without nurse

Answer 1

One proposed solution is to build robotic nurses that will help administer care and support to people in hospitals, care facilities, and homes. Japan’s hospitals are already in shortage of nurses, and according to Japan’s Machine Industry Memorial Foundation, the country could save 2.1 trillion yen (about $21 billion) in health care costs each year by using robots to monitor the nation’s elderly In fact, many robotics companies are already creating machines that look and speak like human beings and several versions of the “Robotic Nurse” already exist. Today, robotic nurses are robots that help patients physically move around or perform simple tasks like taking vital signs or delivering medicine. Some robotic nurses serve as interfaces for doctors to use over distances to communicate with patients. However, a fully-integrated, fully autonomous robot nurse does not yet exist because of the

The benefits of having robots function as caregivers are pretty clear. Individuals are able to live more independently than they would if they had a human caregiver. There is a potential to save money, depending on how much the robot costs and how many person-hours it will save. The individual has a greater freedom of when and how often certain functions are performed.

Imagine a wheelchair user who relies on caregivers to get in and out of bed and to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). The person has to get up when the attendant is there, go to bed when the attendant is there and do ADLs when the attendant is there.

What happens if the person spills a drink or is caught in a rainstorm early in the day, but the caregiver doesn’t arrive until late in the evening? The person would probably have to sit in wet clothes until the caregiver gets there. If they had a robot that could perform the task, they could change clothes right away.

Limited Abilities

So, what are the cons to having a robot as a caregiver?

One negative is that the person can lose the social interaction a human caregiver can give that a robot cannot. Some people with disabilities rarely leave their homes. Their caregiver is their main source of social interaction.

Another problem is a robot’s inability to think and react in a surprise situation. A human caregiver who is present can notice things like pressure ulcers, spoiled food, medications that aren’t right, etc.

Robots, on the other hand, are only capable of doing what they’re programmed to do, and it’s impossible for the programmer to think of every possible surprise situation that could arise.

Diagnosis of disease is not always as simple as ordering an MRI or looking at the results of a blood test. Sometimes trace elements go undetected in the blood stream or masses are too small to be observed on an X-ray. Other times, some diagnostic procedures are too invasive to be considered worthwhile for early evaluation.

Robots are able to offer more precise diagnostic opportunities that are also less invasive. For example, there is a robot that can use ultrasound to provide 3D diagnostic information about a mass found in the breast. (It can also perform a biopsy if necessary.) Other robots can search for aneurysms or tumors in the brain. Yet another robot can be used to diagnose patients remotely when they are unable to see their primary doctor or to fly out to meet a specialist.