To automate, or not to automate? Robo-health-care?

A Glimpse of the Future?

Several recent mid-week posts have addressed aspects of the contemporary and projected issue of automation in the workplace--especially in the area of "machines taking over our jobs." 

A growing number of people think that artificially intelligent robots might take over jobs in white-collar professions, moving far beyond the traditional roles of "the three D's: dangerous, dirty, and dull," as robotics expert Ryan Calo calls them. Today I want to talk about health care.

Exactly what do people mean, when they talk about robots "taking over" the jobs of doctors, nurses, or other health care workers? I'm not sure all mean the same things. One thing they almost certainly do not mean is Emergency Medical Holgram Mark I (as portrayed by actor Robert Picardo on TV's Star Trek: Voyager from 1995-2001).

Don't expect to meet any Emergency Medical Holograms in your neighborhood hospital anytime soon!

But it's a question worth asking, all the same. Richard and Daniel Susskind noted in a 2016 Harvard Business Review article that "There are more monthly visits to the WebMD network, a collection of health websites, than to all the doctors in the United States." 

Okay. But is that a salient observation? A quick Internet check to research a question for free takes a whole lot less time, hassle and expense than a trip to see your doctor. I'm not sure this compares apples to apples, guys.

Also, I don't know any health care professionals who greet with joy (or any expectation of an accurate analysis) the news that their patient looked up his problem on WebMD and has already diagnosed it, "so doctor, you just have to prescribe this kind of pill for me . . ."

Yeah, right. WebMD is a research resource, not a doctor, any more than FindLaw.Com is a lawyer. 

Do medical websites such as WebMD actually erode trust between doctors and patients? A 2015 post on LiveClinic Healthcare Blog makes a point that in some cases they might.

However, the Susskinds' research involved a comprehensive survey of the literature about changes in industry, automation technology, and society, as well as more than 100 interviews with experts in cutting-edge development from a variety of disciplines, so their analysis shouldn't be discounted or ignored. 

When they looked at all the various things doctors and other professionals do, they found that "when professional work is broken down into component parts, many of the tasks involved turn out to be routine and process-based. They do not in fact call for judgment, creativity, or empathy." In other words, although we don't have terribly creative or empathic robots currently, there are elements to a professional's job which don't require those traits. It's not hard to make the leap to the idea of the doctor delegating those things to a machine.

It's true that surgical robots can do many procedures a human surgeon simply could not. Very few of them currently involve autonomous robotics--a doctor still has his/her hands on the controls. But that could change as these machines grow more sophisticated. FW: Thinking has a really informative video on this topic that I hope you'll find as interesting as I did (relax: no blood) :

There also are other uses for robots that may not exactly eliminate the human doctor's role so much as extend it. Some retail pharmacy chains, such as CVS and Rite Aid, have been piloting in-store health kiosks. Robert Thompson of Rite Aid says his stores' interface "pairs licensed healthcare providers with state-of-the-art technology to deliver a truly unique solution to consumers looking for convenient and quality healthcare." 

Telemedicine has enjoyed a worldwide advent, out of necessity. "Doctors are examining patients continents away with interactive robots and hi-tech visuals. These robots are fully mobile, with computer screens for heads and real-time video cameras for eyes and ears. Doctors operate them by using a joystick and wireless technology." 

The Doctor will see you now . . . via telemedicine. There's still a human doctor in this equation, so it's not exactly a replacement. You might note there's also a real live human healthcare practitioner at the patient's bedside as well. Robots have seen particularly robust adoption in Japanese hospitals.

Extending the role of doctors may become an absolute necessity in the near future. We've heard about a looming worldwide shortage of doctors for years, and in April 2016 the Association of American Medical Colleges pointed to strong indicators of coming shortages in the U.S., in several broad categories. We may end up coping with this in a variety of ways, including more care given by physicians' assistants or nurse practitioners--or the use of telemedicine or other automated functions.

There's a shortage of nurses, too, which is leading some observers to predict automation will move into that job category, too. In 2015 a headline on the Horizon Healthcare Staffing website rather chillingly proclaimed, "Robots will replace nurses sooner rather than later," which I think would worry me if I worked for Horizon Healthcare Staffing. As with doctors, however, when you look at the details I think replace may be a stretch, at least in the near term. More like "assist" or "augment."

Introducing Actroid-F, a robotic nurse created by Kokoro Co. Ltd. This robot is designed to provide bedside empathy to patients, but I fear she would seriously weird me out--she's most definitely from Uncanny Valley territory, in my view! The Japanese, however, reportedly have a more comfortable cultural relationship with robots. I sure hope so.

The HHS article describes the entry of robots into the Japanese health care setting in glowing terms: "Robots already play a key role in Japanese hospitals and healthcare facilities. They are able to look after senior citizens, sing with them, and engage with them in other activities." Maybe seniors like to sing with them; who knows? After all, the Japanese were the ones who invented karaoke.

However, a motivating factor for the increasing use of robots in Japan is the fear that as the Japanese population ages, there won't be enough health care workers to take care of them if they don't create robots to do so. I think if they insist on using exclusively Japanese health care workers they're right, but that's a whole 'nother topic.

This is Panasonic's Hospi Type R, essentially a self-driving medicine chest on wheels, "designed to move fragile or bulky medicine and equipment around a hospital." Wi-fi, cameras, and preprogrammed maps help it navigate; it's locked by a system that uses an ID security card for access. It was nicknamed "the pink Dalek"--clearly by someone who doesn't have a clue about the Daleks' favorite one-word catchphrase!

In the Asian healthcare scene, "More and more, hospitals all over the world are realizing that robots are efficient messengers who transport materials like food, x-rays, and linens throughout the hospital, saving wear and tear on the feet of over-worked nurses and aides." Or medicines--pharmacy robots on wheels!--as does the Hospi Type R, shown above.

To my mind a good argument for using robots in a nursing situation would be for tasks "that are physically very demanding and stressful for humans"  (All at once we're back to Ryan Calo's "three Ds"). 

This is Robear, a prototype robot designed in an effort not to scare the living crap out of fragile elderly patients while it helps to transport them safely. Why a bear? It's supposed to look "like a friendly polar bear." Okay. Well, no uncanny valley problems here, anyway!

Not sure how Robear would work in real life? here's a very short video:

Horizon Healthcare Staffing might not be able to get their hands on this nifty new tech fast enough, but I'll be interested to see how well the public accepts Robear, the "pink Dalek," Actroid-F, and their robotic kin.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Before it's News, for the "vision of the future" graphic, and to Bonnie Hutchinson's "Star Trek Voyager" Pinterest Board for the photo of Robert Picardo as EMH Mark I. 

I appreciated not only the photo of a doctor and patient talking to each other on LiveClinic's interesting article "Do Computers erode Doctor and Patient Trust?" but also the article itself, which provides an interesting counterpoint to the Susskinds' observation about WebMD. 
Many thanks to the Re-Tails Blog's post about health care robotics in retail pharmacies, for the photo of the telemedicine delivery robot with the hospital patient. 
My gratitude also goes out to WeirdAsiaNews for the photos of the robotic nurse Actroid-F, to The Verge for the photo of the Panasonic Hospi Type R, to NationalFutur, for the still photo of the Robear, and to WXYZ-TV Detroit and YouTube for the video of Robear in action.