Nurses are a essential component of a properly-run healthcare machine. It would not be an exaggeration to note that nurses are sometimes the maximum crucial humans to their sufferers. Doctors also are essential, of path, but it’s miles nurses who live with sufferers day in and time out, tracking vitals and caring for their needs. As they are such an essential part of the gadget, nurses are expected to stay up to date about the contemporary era to be had in addition to the way to incorporate it into their nursing workouts. One generation, assistive robots, can provide nurses a fantastic deal of help by using taking some of the most meticulous and strenuous bodily obligations out in their hands. Some robots assist with lifting sufferers effectively, for instance, at the same time as others can take off-the-cuff vitals and discover capability issues before they end up huge issues. This article appears at the integration of robots to enhance affected person care and improve outcomes in addition to why it’s far critical that nurses develop know-how in using these robots.
Why are robots becoming important to healthcare?
Nurses should be familiar with cutting-edge robotic technology in the workplace, as medical robots are becoming increasingly important to the healthcare industry. They can compensate for staff shortages, protect both patient and staff by safely transporting patients, and lower
costs for organizations and patients alike.
Lack of nurses
One of the most important challenges the healthcare enterprise within the US faces is an increasing loss of nurses. This is specifically crucial as nurses are clearly essential to a properly functioning care machine that emphasizes fantastic patient consequences. While there are numerous answers being implemented to stave off this issue the us of a is experiencing a nursing scarcity this is projected to develop inside the coming years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the field of professional nursing is expected to grow at least 6% from 2022 to 2032, a that rate is faster than the average for all other occupations measured by the department. This translates to an ongoing need for nearly 200,000 nurses each year due largely to the retirement of aging Baby Boomer professionals.
Regardless of the reason, their absence will impact the healthcare system drastically. Patient outcomes could stand to worsen dramatically if no solutions are proposed to combat this rising need for professionals. The good news is that there are a few options currently being developed and implemented by hospitals that could negate this issue for patients. The introduction of medical robots to aid existing nurses in the industry is a big step in the right direction.
Lower healthcare costs
The US economy directly impacts the medical field and everything within it. This is true in a few different ways.
First the US spends an astronomical amount of money on healthcare. In 2021 for example the National Health Expenditure (NHE) was roughly $4 trillion amounting to nearly $13,000 per person. Both Medicare and Medicaid are becoming more expensive too with both increasing spending by nearly 10% in 2021. This is much more than most other developed nations spend on the population and by 2031 NHE growth is expected to outpace the GDP growth on average at 5.6% to 4.6%.
This means that healthcare is an expensive prospect in the US and resources for patients who need low-cost care are very competitive. This is where medical robots come into play. Assistive medical robots such as surgical robots are particularly efficient at saving patients and hospitals money per procedure. The same is true of assistive robots designed for nursing. Some can make nurses’ lives much easier by taking care of issues such as lifting patients, monitoring vital signs, and responding to critical health events. This lessens the burdens nurses carry as their number dwindles, helping to prevent burnout and maintain positive patient outcomes.
Improved patient outcomes via more comprehensive care
The last benefit of medical robots is an increased level of care for patients, especially as staying in a hospital or visiting medical facilities such as primary care centers can be stressful. While the responsibility of calming patients tends to fall on nurses’ shoulders, as their available time shrinks, their ability to socially soothe patients and visitors likely will reduce too. Medical robots designed for social interaction, such as Moxi, can interact with people and respond to questions and jokes. Moxi, in particular, is designed with high emotional intelligence and responds to visible symptoms of distress (or happiness) in patients by speaking with them directly. It can even pose for selfies!
In addition to the social benefits of medical robots, they can also help with cleaning and delivering items such as supplies and lab samples. Others were created with the express purpose of safely transporting patients from one part of the hospital to another, with some able to lift patients from the floor to a standing or sitting position. They can also carry patients to testing, transfer them from bed to a wheelchair, and turn patients in bed.
As the medical field is so important to the lives of every American, it makes sense to craft a comprehensive patient experience from the second they walk in the door (and greet a robot like Moxie), through the procedure process with aid from surgical or lifting robots, to walking out of the door again. Medical robots can help create a pleasant experience for patients at every touch point.
Why should nurses learn about medical robots?
So, why do nurses need to learn about medical robots if the robots are that effective? Why can’t they just do their job while nurses do theirs? This arrangement can work to a certain extent but is not the most productive way to implement robots in nursing. On the contrary, not fully understanding what robots can do and how they can help nurses as they work means that many robots are not operating to their full capacity. As a result, nurses may be taking care of things they could have the robot do instead. There are a number of additional reasons why nurses should learn about medical robots that are listed below.
Maximize their time
One of the biggest reasons nurses should invest their time in learning about medical robots and how to best use them is time management. While today’s nursing industry is shrinking as more nurses retire or choose other employment, there are still many successful and effective nurses dedicated to providing their patients with the best care possible. The amount of time they can spend with their patients is getting smaller by the day. It is no longer as easy as it once
was to spend five or 10 minutes chatting with a patient and making sure that they feel comfortable and safe. Today’s nurses simply have too much to do.
Outside of hiring new nurses, which the industry is poise to do in coming years, medical
robots can help nurses reclaim time to spend with their patients. Consider some of the
following tasks and imagine how much time might be save through the use of efficient and accurate robots.
Cleaning
Nurses spend a lot of their time cleaning. Not quite as much as a professional cleaning crew might, of course, but nurses clean things as they go and can’t just leave their patients in a room with dirty linens or other potential health hazards. Robots like Moxi can help detect cleanliness issues and automatically clean as they go. This includes gathering soiled garments or sheets and transporting them directly to the laundry. As a result of this help, nurses spend less time walking back and forth themselves, giving them more valuable time to spend with their patients.
Storage
Another area where robots help nurses is via storage automation, as medical facilities have rather large storage facilities with all manner of tools and medications to organize. Maintaining this system can be an endless task, with nurses sometimes spending quite a bit of time
painstakingly organizing and cleaning the storage to ensure it is easy to find items on-the-go.
Storage robots can help do this task, including bringing things to storage and organizing them as they go. Nurses will likely still need to double-check the work and take care of any of
the more complex organization or labeling issues at hand, but the time they spend on this
endeavor is significantly reduce.
Moving patients
One of the biggest things medical robots can do to help nurses is move patients. Not all nurses have the physical fitness required to move patients. Furthermore, over time, working in
the nursing field can lead to repetitive injuries that make heavy lifting difficult, if not impossible. Medical robots can step in and take over this particularly difficult task. They can move patients in numerous ways, from helping them up if they fall to taking them from one location
to the next and even simply holding them steady in situations where they need to be temporarily move.
Improve ‘human’ skills
Nurses have many invaluable skills necessary for effective care. Without them, the medical field would be a very different place for patients. The most important of these skills are firmly human in nature and include empathy, compassion, active listening, and troubleshooting. All of these are critical to creating a good patient experience, and none can be offere by robots. Unfortunately, nurses today don’t always have the morale or time to consider exercising them.
Medical robots can take care of the simple things so that nurses can use their ‘human’
skills to improve their performance and give their patients a more positive outcome.
How can nurses learn about robots?
Many people may be wondering how nurses can learn about robots. This is a question many medical students have as well. The good news is that any nursing program from a reputable institution will feature information about medical robots, including basic instructions about their benefits and their uses. This information is include in online nursing programs accelerated for early graduation and effective learning too. All students need to do is pick the right school and they will learn the skills needed to enter into the field of nursing and interact with nursing robots. The University of Indianapolis, for example, has a history of turning out effective and professional nurses ready to hit the ground running. Their online Accelerate Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) course is a prime example and can be complete entirely online within just 15 months.
Learn about robotics in healthcare today
Anyone interested in learning more about medical robotics and how the technology can impact nursing will find plenty of useful information through online nursing courses. As technology and healthcare moves forward, this is an ever-evolving field with plenty of potential at hand.
With robotics by their side, nurses and healthcare professionals in the US can continue
to provide a stellar patient experience despite the challenges they may face.