As the number of patients testing positive for the coronavirus infection keeps soaring, the doctors and other healthcare staff continue to remain vulnerable to the viral infection. The medical fraternity is prone to these infections every time they help these patients recover from the deadly contagion.
Considering this high risk on the medical team, Fortis hospital in Bengaluru has come up with the aid of robots that could help prevent the doctors and medical staff from communicating the disease.
Two robots, one named Mitra and the other unnamed, have been introduced at the hospital in Bannerghatta Road to ensure little or no contact between the patients and doctors.
Two robots at the OPD
The robots will ensure on the temperature of the patients visiting the OP Department by checking out all their symptoms and conditions before sending them to the respective doctors and departments.
Initially Mitra was first developed for the purpose, later joined by the second Robo for a more elaborate analysis of the patients.
While Mitra checks the patient's fever, temperature and its details, the second one assesses for Covid related symptoms in them.
A video call is then arranged with the doctors after which a slip is issued to the patients to visit the doctors.
Pass issued by the robots
The pass issued marks 'pass or fail' to the patients with respect to the analysis of their symptoms. For instance, if the patient has no signs of cough and cold, the robot prints an entry pass that mentions screening results as 'pass' along with the patient's name and picture.
While if he/she shows high temperature with symptoms of cold and cough, a pass showing screening result as 'fail' will be issued.
Dr Manish Mattoo, Zonal Director, Fortis Hospitals spoke to the media, "The robots reduce the interface between citizens. They have helped in crowd and queue management. Each robot spends not more than 20 seconds with each patient. They also help maintain hygiene protocols."
He also explained these robots will be placed only at the OPD so that the patients in large numbers will be analysed quick and then sent to the respective flu clinics and doctors.
They interact with the patients using facial and speech recognition contextual help and autonomous navigation.
The hospital management also stated that they are planning to add more such robots if the cases keep increasing on the coming days. The medical and health care staff at the hospital have welcomed the robotic assistance.
