Efficient
Science fiction throughout the 20th Century has imagined robot workers, from R2D2 in the film Star Wars to Data, the operations officer in Star Trek. Reality has been slow to catch-up, until now, as the Forth Valley Hospital project in Scotland is being designed to use robots.

In large complexes, such as hospitals, robots can be an incredibly efficient way of moving materials around, including bed linen, operating theatre equipment, and waste removal. There will be a lot of this work, because when the new hospital is finished it will have up to 5,000 patients at any one time.

Laser-guided
David Stark, a director of the architectural company Keppie Design, which designed the new hospital explains how the robot system is an advance on existing technology, ‘The George Pompidou Hospital in Paris, and various hospitals in Japan, use an earlier model with a copper insert guide strip in the floor.  Laser guidance will be used in the new hospital.  Earlier control systems involved pre-programmed activities for different times of the day, whereas modern control systems are more responsive and flexible.’ Hospital employees can request materials and a central computer will send a robot, assigning a place in a queue according to how urgent the request is.

More time with patients
A study has already been carried out which proves the superior efficiency of this system, and there are other hugely beneficial factors. ‘Robots take away many heavy and mundane manual tasks of the sort that could lead to safety issues and repetitive strain injury’, explains Stark. ‘Porters are able to spend more time with patients and providing assistance to care teams.  As part of the control of infection strategy, there are “clean” and “dirty” robots that segregate materials and minimise cross contamination.  Robots do not need light to move around in, and do not bump into walls and doors, reducing damage.’

The next step might be to have robots dispensing medicine from the pharmacy, and though in America trials have taken place with robots ‘for minimally invasive surgery,’ it’s likely we will have human doctors for a long time yet!