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Table of Content
Functions of Robots in Healthcare Profession
The Challenges for Robots to replace Nurses & Doctors
Ethical Issues related with Use of Robots
Issues related to the use of nursing-care robots
Attribution
of Liability Issues
Robots Relieve Burden from Nurses
Replacement and its implications for labor
Replacement and its implications for the quality of care
Nursing Robots be Essential in Future
Is
It Possible for Robots to Replace All The Nurses and Doctors?
The replacement
of nurse and doctors with robots is becoming trending. As it is very appealing that in
future robots will perform the same function as doctors, nurses and other
paramedical staff is performing nowadays. However, there are many ethical concerns
regarding this robotics replacement in health care field. Some of these concerns
could be ignorable but most of the other concerns are
highly important still, and need to be deal with great attention.
Otherwise, these problems can cause serious problems in the replacement of
medical professionals by the robotic health care. The management of modern
health care centers and robotic scientists needs to review these ethical issues
collectively, and produce reliable solutions for these concerns and make robotic
health care possible to implement. Whenever we want to start new organizations
or institutes we have to meet certain pre-defined standards, which are settled
by the international standards.
ISO is one of these standards
that is responsible for maintaining and implementing the procedures in
almost all production units and factories and organizations worldwide. However,
in this field, it is very hard to determine the standards even by the agencies
like ISO. The reason behind is that, robotic health care technology is
comparatively new and unfamiliar for many of us. Many
people expressed their opinions regarding ethical concern of robotics
technology. The most logical and appealing perception by the experts regarding
robotic technology is that scientists should design the programs of these
robotic technologies about the ethical concern; this will help considerably to
resolve many of the ethical concerns regarding robotic health care. These views
of experts enable us to understand that ethically there is still space for
improvement in this technology. It is comparatively easy to program these smart
machines about the ethical concerns in the early days of this technology
otherwise with the excessive use of this robotic technology it will become
difficult to bring changes in the practical applications of these robots. With
the development and betterment of the robotic technology, there is possibility
for the improvement logically. Development from
different technological and functional aspects will
definitely help the robotic technology to become more popular, more practical,
more adaptable, and more adoptable. Some of the other writers have shown their
concern regarding the different aspects and issues
of the robotic technology. Writer says, it is understandable that these special
machines are far more professional and efficient as compared with the humans.
These robotic technologies can fulfill a task within no time, which is done by
humans in many hours. These qualities of such intelligent machines seem to be
very attractive. However, the concern is associated with the questions that “will these robots respect our elders as we
do?” Will they treat our kids the same love and care, as we do? Will they
respect the humanity? Will they take care of the moral values of our society?
Modern
era is called the era of technology. Everything in our routine life is directly
or indirectly dependent on technology from television to mobile phone, from
food processing to microwave oven, from motor bike to air buses each, and
everything is dependent on technology. Like all other fields of life,
technology has produced wonders in the field of medicine. Robotic technologies
are performing different functions, which were previously done by the doctors.
In the same way, robots are performing the functions of the nurses as well.
Intelligent devices, which are performing the functions of nurses, are program
to assist doctors in operation theaters, attend patients in hospitals and at
homes. The programmed devices works on the basis of
predefined instructions and follows the instructions of senior doctors.
This robotics can perform each single function, which are performed by the
nurses. The robot nurses are highly professionals and efficient. It is very
easy to program a robot to perform any function like; to engage the IV line, or
to inject an inject able medicine, or to check BP and sugar levels of the
patients, or to change a urine bag. A robotic technology can assist patient to
get up from their beds and walk a little, nurse robots can also help patient to
change the hospital gown. Moreover, smart machines can perform all these tasks
with perfections and accuracy. The most important and biggest advantage of the
robot nurses in medical field is that, these robots can easily perform all the functions and tasks, which are considered
dangerous and harmful for human nurses without any risk. Intelligent machines
do not get bored or upset from their jobs and can perform any task repeatedly
with same efficiency. Robot nurses can easily be placed in the exposure of
radiation and in the department of nuclear medicine and oncology, which is
considered most risky departments in medical sciences. Hospitals do not need to
give heavy medical allowances and sick leaves to the robot nurses, which make
the robotic services very cheaper as compared with human services.
Interestingly robotic medical professionals can merely be present on their
duties 24/7, especially on the public holidays when no human wants to work.
According to a survey, smart technologies can perform same functions as human’s
medical professional do in just 35% labor cost as compared with humans. The lower labor cost makes the devices more compatible and
replaceable. Nursing robot technologies have great influences in the
diagnosis of diseases and treatment of those diseases. Efficient machines can
take the vitals of the patients along with the medical history, which helps to
save precious time of the medical professionals as well as the patients. With
the involvement of the technology, the risk of the human error has become very
limited, which makes the medical procedures more reliable and result oriented
and less time consuming.
With the development of the technology, the dependence
of the bedridden patients, on family members and other attendants has become
very less which is a very big achievement in this field. Robot nurses can help
patients to rise from their beds and give them mobility, which is important
especially after surgery. Robot nurses are always available for the patients in
days and nights and do not demand for any day off or extra allowances. Nursing robots are very reliable to monitor
the high-risk patients and patients understand observation after surgeries and
other medical procedures, such technologies monitor the patients very carefully
and instantly inform the concerned doctor if anything went wrong with the
patient, these robots are really helping to save lives.
The medical services and performance increases due to replacement of robots
with the doctors and medical staff.
Nursing robotics are very helpful and
reliable to monitor the vitals of the patients like heart beat, blood pressure,
oxygen saturation and sugar levels. This collected data is very reliable
because there is very little possibility of error in the functions of these
robots. This data is then transferred to the concerned person or authority.
However, the issue is that the transfer of patient’s data by these means may
breach the privacy barriers of the patients. On the
other hand this has make the life very easy for the family of the
patient, but on the other hand if the protocols of the privacy will not be
followed then this technology can very dangerous for the confidentiality of the
patient and his/her family. This concern needs to be addressed on priority
basis to expand the use of technology in medical field.
With the excessive involvement of
technology the interaction of humans with other humans have become very less.
In addition, this is very alarming for the humanity. With progressive use of
robotic nurses, this interaction will become very rare. Humans need other
humans around to the new ideas and happiness and sorrows. If we do not find
other humans around us then we will become mentally sick and this is really threatening
for the dignity of humanity. These moral values cannot be programmed in robots.
We cannot share our feeling and emotions with robots. From this aspect, robotic
technology is unable to replace humans. Keeping all the pros and cons in mind, robots
can be use in the medical field but yes, there are many limitations in the use
of technology in medical field.
One has to accept the advanced role
of the technology in our routine life. All the comforts and luxuries of the
modern life are the fruits of technology. With all the positives of the
technology, it also has some limitations. As this modern form of technology is
unable to give emotional comfort to the humanity, this technology can only
perform those specific tasks and functions for which it has been
programmed. However, it is unable to
handle any situation for which it is not programmed. Like, if the robotics has
to face any new emergency, robots can misread and mistreat that situation which
may results in the death of the patient. In addition, for this mishandling the
family of the patient has no idea, who should be blamed for the loss of the
life of their loved one. This is a big limitation in the extension of the use
of robotic nursing because smart machines are unable to make curtain shuffling
according to the situation for which they are not instructed before.
To deal with such issues we have
artificial intelligence. This artificial intelligence will help robots to make
certain changes in their functions according to the situation. These artificial
intelligence is still working on trail bases, and if it works as expected, then
these life threatening incidences will no longer happen, which are happens due
to misreading of the situation by the robot nurses.
Another major discouraging issue
regarding robotic nursing is the unemployment.
Robotic technology has done miracles in the field of health care. Robots
has set new standards in health care, artificial intelligence technology can
assist doctors at operation theaters and patients in hospitals as well as
homes. Robots can give medications to the patients and maintain the medical
records as well. Robots can perform all the functions very rapidly and with
accuracy. The use of the robot nurses will be doubled in next few years, which
will take health care field to the next level. With the help of robotics the
surgeries and other medical procedures, which may take days and weeks, will be
done in no time. So, in simple words we can say with the involvement of the
robots medical field will be revolutionized. On the other hand, nurses,
midwives and other paramedical staff will lose their jobs. Nursing and
paramedics are among the most productive professions in the whole world. In
addition, many people are linked with these professions. If robotic nursing
will continue to expand then all of these nurses and paramedics will lose,
their jobs and unemployment will be increase all around the globe. It is
understandable that in any society where unemployment is increases the crime
rate will also be increase. Will rapid expansion in the use of robotic
technology in health care we have to keep these issues in mind and find
solutions for these concerns. One of the solutions of this issue is to impose
taxes on the use of robots. The research work should be done and surveys and
conventions should be held to find best possible solutions for this major
issue.
If ethical issues are focused upon,
the very first issue is concerned with the fact that autonomy is not linked
with all the robotic technology that has been developed. For instance, there
are surgical robots which are to be controlled by surgeons. Even so, there is
immense concentration upon the development of autonomous technological systems.
Autonomous systems have the capability of carrying out activities on their own
without having to rely on the help of humans. If such systems continue to grow
then a day will come when nurses and various other staff members will not be
needed at all which is considered ethically problematic. Additionally, there is
also a risk of a task going wrong and harming the patient in the process which
raises another ethical issue. The issues and problem
concerning the moral agency induces impact on the efficiency of the services.
Smart machines are not capable of reasoning morally or even dealing with an
ethical problem. Therefore, ethical problems rise. A human has a responsibility
of functions that he or she performs but the same cannot be said about robotic
technology. There are also ethical concerns regarding the protection of data
privacy and safety as smart machines cannot be held accountable for such
issues.
One side of the robotic science is
amazingly beneficial for the humans development as it has largely improved the
healthcare system however the concerning thing is that the robotic technology
is two edges swords as its one end is highly beneficial for the human but on
their other hand it has posed some issues as well. Likewise, with the growing
interaction between the human and robots in the healthcare science, the
challenges are growing as well. The growing challenges are of multiple aspects
therefore, there is need to work very responsibly with this growing technology.
In this context, every person involved in the development of this technology,
in operating, the suppliers, the manufacturers and everyone should work very
carefully to ensure the safety. Moreover, it is important that the hazard
potential of the robots should be addressed and handled with great care. The
robotic science is on the developing stage, therefore, it required lot of
improvements to reach at the advanced level therefore, in this period there are
so many weaknesses and faults could appear in this technology and considering
this aspect, there is need to ensure the safety by the test checking of the
technology before sending them to the industry. Moreover, by addressing the
matter of safety the concerned authority should give it utmost attention when
using the robotic technology with the reason that the scope of this technology
can only be enhanced by reducing their weaknesses and vulnerability to the
society. There is need to develop an understanding that safety failure can
cause huge loss to the company and it might cause them business downfall.
Along with the security, there is another
major issue that have restricted the robotic technology to be used with its
full advantage and that is the security issue. Due to the security issues the
smart machines have the potential of being hacked and could be manipulated by
the hackers. Therefore, with the growing technology of robots, there is also
need to protect them from the security relate matter. However, it is not an
easy task to ensure the protection of the robots from the hackers because they
are known as the evil genius therefore, they can only be controlled through
strong systems of protections. Considering this aspect, in the manufacturing of
the robots, the companies should give importance to the protection of the smart
devices from the hackers
In the recent few years the Artificial
Intelligence has revolutionized the human world therefore, this technology is
increasing and the robot science development is largely depends on the
Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, with the effective use of the Artificial
Intelligence it is expected that the robotics will serve multiple industries in
the future and healthcare is one of them that are aimed to be used in the
clinical settings. In this regards the robot nurses are expected to be appear
at large in the healthcare industry where they will work along with the nurses.
In this regard, it is expected that the robotic nurses would have two ways
impact that are negative and positive as well. One of the major negative
concern of the robot nurses have been discussed above as it will allow the
hackers to interfere in the healthcare system, which pose a threat to the
private information. Likewise, the robots are feeling less and at the same
time, they are lack of the ability of touch. In the like manners, it is also
expected that in the future, the robots would replace the humans and would
create unemployment challenges because the intelligent technologies are one
time investment and labor required salary therefore, by seeking their benefits,
the employer would prefer robots on human workers. The
relieve of stress results in the better and improved services for the other
patients.
On the other hand, it is also expected
that the robots would improve the work efficiency in the healthcare as they
have better efficiency as they hold the ability to triage the patients in the
emergency department and clinics and at the same time, they can recover the
shortage of the professional staff in the areas with low literacy rate. In such
area where professionals are less in numbers as
compared to the required, the artificial intelligence technology can
play their role through the tele-health services. Furthermore, with the use of
the artificial intelligence could also provide assistance in improving the
system of the hospital admissions and complications due to the lack of the
education. Moreover, the potential associated with the AI would improve the
healthcare system by linking the healthcare services with the smartphone, which
improve the knowledge sharing and would have positive impact on the health care
as everyone will have an easy access to the doctor
On one side the human development has
developed large number of employment opportunities for the human likewise, the
advent of the computerized technology have improve the efficiency and speed of
working and in the reflection of it a large number of jobs have been created.
However, on the other hand, there are new challenges set by the digital world
for the labor such as with the development of the robotic technology a large
number of people might be replaced in future by the robots that would create
more burden on the economy by creating new unemployment challenges. There is need to have control over the manipulation of the
robotic world and this can be controlled by introducing the rules and
regulation by setting limit on the usage of the robot workers
One
of the biggest objections to the idea of incorporating robots in the medical
field as nurses deals with the quality of care they can provide. While robotic
technologies can cause unemployment of nurses, they cannot give the empathic,
‘warm’ care that humans can. Robots are mechanical and it is dubious if they
could ever have emotions that mirror human empathy, The concern is greater for
elderly people, as they may be abandoned to machines, who treat their patients
merely as objects, when patients need more than just healthcare – they need
empathy. (Theconversation.com, 2017)
While
health care robotic technologies are not necessarily autonomous, for example,
surgical bots are controlled by a surgeon; a growing concern
with allowing robots to be more involved in the health care research is their
increasing autonomy. A term used is autonomous systems. Robots would need to
carry tasks without humans meddling in and supervision. A likely consequence of
this could be unemployment of health care workers, which is in the grey areas
of morality and ethics. Even if the intelligent machines do not completely
replace humans, the limits of their autonomy are ambiguous. The most important consideration is the questions of
what degree of autonomy should robots be given. For example, when smart
machines are employed in children’s therapy, they should be supervised.
Role
and tasks
related to the use of nursing-care robots
A
key difference between humans and robots is that humans can do moral reasoning,
but machines using artificial intelligence cannot. This leads to many concerns
in healthcare industry. As robots cannot deal with ethically questionable
scenarios, they are clueless if such a situation arises. Considering that,
robots are going to be autonomous and without human intervention, they would
not be able to take a decision. Humans, on the other hand, can reflect on the
ethics of their decisions. Philosophers propose installing a device that allows
robotics to determine reason
ethically, but many believe that it is next to impossible to do that,
especially when dealing with the complex issues of healthcare. (Hart, 2018)
Another
question that appears on whose shoulders the responsibility rests on. If robots
are fully autonomous, are they responsible for the actions they take over?
Robots cannot be morally responsible. Then who is responsible for their
actions? If human beings are responsible for
robotic actions as they can assume moral responsibility? In that case, how do
humans exercise their responsibility while maintaining the autonomy of robots?
Can the robot be trusted by the human caregivers or is this concept
inapplicable to robots? These questions are often vocalized by ICT and by many
technologies involving human users as well. (The Medical Futurist, 2018)
Data
privacy is another issue that comes when robotic technologies are brought into health
care. Which data could be collected by robots, how can it be stored, who can
access it, who can own it, what happens to these people are the questions
raised among many more. The fundamental principle is safety; robots should not
harm the people involved. The people that are the stakeholders are patients,
who are ill or the elderly, and are very vulnerable. Therefore, their privacy
and safety is very important. People involved know the magnitude of these
issues and try to mitigate them.
Therefore, Fischinger et al. have a set of rules for their robots; they
cannot follow their patient all the time, which gives the patient a sense of
privacy and security. (The Medical Futurist, 2018)
Measures
are suggested to tackle the problems of
safety and privacy are always open to further discussion. Many approaches,
normative and theoretical in nature, are applied to healthcare ethics in
robotic perspectives, such as Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, phenomenology,
critical theory and ethics or care. These approaches are fundamental in
highlighting moral insensitivities and they help us in understanding the current
healthcare practices. These ethics also are the raw material for research,
which could bring together academics of diverse backgrounds, and is
aggregating into a new field. This philosophical work could be fundamental for
research in robotics and clinicians who can use it to improved their
methodology. Even though some of these scenarios might be nothing more than
science fiction, they can shape our values mad the future of healthcare with
respect to robotics. Coeckelbergh’s fictional scenario, for example, deals with
the ICT shaping up the social interaction of the elderly people.
The significant improvement in
the health care system is causing to increase the expectancy rates in the average
age of human being. Birth rate in the Western countries is dropping. In
European countries average children rate is 1.5. While statistics presented by
the Eurostat facility shows that there should be at-least 2.1 children born in
average to maintain the population size constant. The
decrease in the birth rate and increase in the
life expectancy rate is causing to make the society an ageing society. More than 30 present of the whole Japanese
population are around the age of 65. As a result of increase in life-expectancy
and ageing society, nurses and care takers available to the old age people are
less than the requirement. In such way robotic nurses can support the health
care systems by performing the job duties of nurses and care takers
The
combined effect of increase in life-expectancy and decrease in birth rate is exclusively on good on economy of the country by more
pensions’ budget to the old age and less working people. In addition to this
there are very few people left to cater the old persons as nurses or care
takers. A study done by Stanford university illustrates that the main reason
behind evolving the care nursing smart machines is due to the insufficient care
takers in Japan.
The
idea behind the artificial intelligence was given hundred years ago but in the modern days, the development of robotics is
said to replace the manual skills eventually for much more revenues and greater
productivity. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that robots may
supersede all the duties of the nurses in our lives. As machines are taking
over the tasks and responsibilities one may need to enhance their skills to
become more attractive for your employers.
We
can see that robots are already taking place in our society in several ways
like healthcare from making the serious operations to just carrying simple
random stuff within the hospital, like the delivery of items within the
hospitals. It can be concluded that implementation of
robots as replacement of doctors and nurses definitely will have an
impact on jobs roles, healthcare professionals and even employers on how to
train employees in the time coming soon as we can expect the robotic
technologies to stay here for long for whatever the task may do. This will
leave the healthcare with the new challenges to extent their skilled
superiority to a new level as some of the tasks are being leaved by them like
in past. As we are moving forward towards a better, High-tech future the
necessity of better education and training received on the jobs will become
vital.
Higher
education combined with passion in healthcare would ensure that robots could
not replace nurses. Even the education and knowledge of the intelligent
machines is similar to what of the nurse even then it would be difficult for
the robot to compete the nurse. As nurse can react to the emotions while robots
cannot thus you can say very confidently that healthcare field is full of
emotions or you can say that Healthcare system is a very emotional business. Because
nurses can better take care of the
patient by feeling the emotions of the patients and reacting accordingly. Even
though if the stress may distract you for a while but emotions or sympathy may
bring you back to the patient care.
Those nurses who can easily adopt the
changes of the environment, new methods or systems are well prepared for the
challenges industry is facing. On the contrary those nurses who feel real hard
to overcome these challenges can take great advantage from the travel nursing
as it requires to get use to a new location, system and other challenges one
may have to overcome as well as they can learn new ways of doing things. This
technique helps them in discovering themselves as well as gets to use to new
changes after learning. This kind of elasticity nurses will need in the near
future to cope up with the changes coming in the healthcare.
Conclusion on the use of nursing-care robots
To conclude the study we can say that robots may be helpful for the health care system in a number of ways but completely replacing the intelligent machines with the nurses in the health care would be a serious concern as well as ethical issues. As robots may not be as effective as humans can be in many different ways. Besides this, a question arises on how patient feels in total absence of human nurses or how their emotional needs will be served. This is a major concern that arises as a replacement of human care with the robotics care. Smart machines cannot understand the human behavior specifically talking about the emotions as Humans can understand the feelings of other human being. Robotization can however be effective in basic chores like giving a reminder to healthcare about the appropriate time for medicine, taking meal, about the appointment and drinking. However, in the same way patients tend to enjoy the interaction of other human being in this regard. They feel happier when a nurse interacts with them. We can safely say that a total replacement of human nurses with Robots will be a serious concern to an industry, which is already in crisis. However, with the human presence, things can be improved and problems may not become critical as without the human presence.
References
related to the use of nursing-care robots
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Ars, D. B., & Lambert, D. (2018). Medical robotics:
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[1]
ActiveAdvice. (2017, March 29). Robots: The Future of
Nursing. Retrieved from
https://www.activeadvice.eu/news/robots-the-future-of-nursing/
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