In recent years, automation has become more and more developed. From automating factories to self-driving cars, everything seems possible at the moment. Researchers and developers are continuously busy creating robots and developing new kinds of inventions. But are we (as humans) happy with this development? Do we have the confidence to trust robots in, for example, hospitals?
The company Fast Focus B.V. has developed a wireless device called “Vital Signs Monitor”, which can be worn behind the human ear and monitors the vital organs. Because the skin near the ear is very thin, signals are picked up through blood vessels. In this way, data is collected per patient. The product is particularly suitable for nursing departments because only nurses do patient monitoring. Usually, a nurse visits the patients once in a while to obtain the same kind of data as the Vital Signs Monitor can do. The device allows monitoring to be much more efficient and effective and is cost-effective.
The ultimate goal of this development is to put combined raw data from large numbers of patients into one extensive data set. This data can then be analyzed using algorithms and other analysis techniques. For physicians, this is interesting because it may recognize diseases at an early stage.
This method of monitoring also comes with some drawbacks. People are known to trust equipment not as much as humans. They are afraid of breakdowns, and in critical states (which often occur in hospitals), these are amplified. There is also the issue of privacy. Do people really want to have all the data in a database? In addition, many occupations will disappear because of this automation.
So what do you guys think? Are these developments beneficial to health care? Or should we keep the human nurses in the hospitals?
Sources:
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/privacy-health-care
HI Emi,
I think you have written a very interesting piece about implementing robots/technological devices in the healthcare industry. It is indeed a very good questions whether some parts of the healthcare industry should be automated. Did you know that implementing these technological innovations are part of eHealth? In recent years eHealth is increasingly becoming more relevant and companies are developing various devices and platforms so that consumers/patients can be monitored from home. An example from the Netherlands is the Luscii application, which allows patients to use their smartphones to input their vital signs data such as heart rate, blood pressure, etc. In turn this data is then collected in the app and then a AI algorithm informs the patients clinicians if the patients health is deteriorating and needs attention. I think in the future this will become more widely used and not a lot of jobs will be lost as this creates additional value and doctors/nurses will still be necessary to treat patients.