Validity of Delivery Robots in Healthcare: Annotated Bibliography

Validity of Delivery Robots in Healthcare: Annotated Bibliography
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Validity of Delivery Robots in Healthcare: Annotated Bibliography
Technological advancement is among the significant modern forces driving healthcare changes. Its impact ranges from instruments, equipment, medical procedures, communication, and organization process. Currently, the application of robots is among the critical emerging aspects of technological impact on healthcare. In the era of the Covid-19 pandemic, for instance, delivery robots have been used in services delivery as part of the social distancing requirements. Delivery robots have emerged as part of this development, and their application spans beyond healthcare with prospects in the delivery of goods and services by retail organizations like Amazon. Delivery robots are autonomous robots that provide delivery services within and without the organization acting as a bridge between medical service providers or primary healthcare providers and patients. As part of the emerging importance of delivery robots in healthcare, a growing number of studies and research papers either critique or advocate for this development. The current paper is an annotated bibliography of four of these articles that promote delivery robots in healthcare.
My primary interest in choosing this topic is understanding how delivery robots will save time and human resources for quality improvement in healthcare delivery. With this in mind, I developed several keywords that produced potential articles for the current topic when used alone or combined. The keywords included healthcare, delivery robots, humanoids, and robotics. The search was conducted on several medical and health databases, including EMBASE, HAPI, MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus, and EBSCO host. The key inclusion criterion was that all articles promoted the application of delivery robots. Additionally, all articles selected were published within the past five years to provide the latest developments on the topic.
Annotated Bibliography
Khan, Z. H., Siddique, A., & Lee, C. W. (2020, May 28). Robotics Utilization for Healthcare Digitization in Global COVID-19 Management. Retrieved from NCBI: /pmc/articles/PMC7312924/
The authors premise that the recent achievement of the Chinese and Korean health sectors in containing the Covid-19 pandemic would not have been possible without state-of-the-art medical technology. Delivery robots were part of this technological advancement. Based on this premise, the authors describe the evolving role of robotics in health care procedures and processes relating to the control and management of Covid-19. According to the authors, the prime utilization of delivery robots was to minimize person-to-person contact, i.e., reduction of the frequency with which medical personnel interacts with potentially infected patients as part of the social distancing protocol.
In the discussion on the requirement of robots in healthcare, the article reveals that the International Federation of Robots (IFR) predicts that the robotics market will reach $9.1 billion by 2022 due to increasing demand in the health sector. The relevance of delivery robots in the sector is to carry out precise and complex tasks and lower the workload on medical professionals. The primary areas of underutilization delivery robots include receptionists in healthcare facilities, nursing robots, ambulance services, telemedicine, serving robots within healthcare facilities, surgical procedures, rehabilitation, and cleaning & sterilization. In essence, a holistic application of these robotics spares ample time for medical professionals to rest, pursue other activities, or have ample time with patients.
As part of the current project, I selected this article, firstly, because it fits the current inclusion criteria. It promoted the application of delivery robots in healthcare and was published within the time stipulated. Secondly, the article was chosen because it provides comprehensive and extensive ways to utilize delivery robots. The authors go at length to provide visual information, which helps in understanding the developments without necessarily interacting with the technology physically.
Maibaum, A., Bischof, A., Hergesell , J., & Lipp, B. (2021, April 16). A critique of robotics in health care. Retrieved from Springer Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-021-01206-z
In this article, the authors premise that whenever there is a discussion on the social relevance of robotics, application in care settings is often the example provided. While robotics has been presented as the solution to the nur...