A New Phase of Healthcare: COVID-19 and Medical Advancements

Abstract

Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) was, declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11th March 2020, which has posed innumerable challenges for the medical fraternity. To overcome these obstacles healthcare professionals, engineers and industries like robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3 Dimension (3D) printing etc., are coming up with innovations that can assist them in administering critical care to COVID patients, restart health services for non-COVID patients, combat the spread of the disease, restart elective services and above all protect themselves while treating others. This article is a narrative review of the developments in the field of robotics and AI, improvements in ventilators and critical care facilities, measures taken to spread awareness and the need of such innovations, their benefits and effectiveness in relation to the current scenario. Articles regarding advancements during COVID months of March-May 2020 were searched on the internet and references giving medical evidence of the suitability of these innovations were added from PubMed and Google Scholar search engines, wherever necessary. Knowing the need and principles of such medical innovations which can help in improving the current practices or replace them with even better technologies are the need of the hour.

Applications of Healthcare Robots in Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The robot is primarily used to carry out sanitization of hospital premises, thus preventing the direct contact of individuals from the contaminated zones [ 24 ]. Moreover, its operational advantages include its simplicity of usage, so it can be operated by anyone without any advance technical skills [ 25 ].…”

Enhancing the productive engagement of COVID-19-driven workers’ exodus through micro-entrepreneurship: accentuated role of de-globalization and local innovations

“…Similarly, another NOIDA-based firm New Life Company got approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for a rapid testing kit at a cost of about 7.5 USD. Big companies also contributed to innovation; for example, Bangalore-based biotechnology firm has come out with a strip-based testing kit that was clinically tested and evaluated by ICMR as a deployable solution (Puri et al, 2020 ). Ventilator: IIT, Roorkee (a Technology institute from India) in collaboration with AIIMS, New Delhi (a medical science institute), innovated a ventilator called “Praan-Vayu” suitable for Indian conditions and costs as low as 300 USD, much lower than any available ventilator in the market.…”

“… Ventilator: IIT, Roorkee (a Technology institute from India) in collaboration with AIIMS, New Delhi (a medical science institute), innovated a ventilator called “Praan-Vayu” suitable for Indian conditions and costs as low as 300 USD, much lower than any available ventilator in the market. It could work well in open spaces, thus deployable at many makeshift hospitals that were developed across the country to tackle corona pandemic (Design and Development-team, 2020 ; Puri et al, 2020 ). Robotics: Kerala, Bangalore, NOIDA, and Delhi along with many other Indian states deployed robots to aid health workers at hospitals.…”

“…Nightingale-19 is designed by a local engineering college in support of the health department. Also, Indo-Tibet Border Police have taken robotic services from a Gurgaon-based local robotics company Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz to provide robots that could support food and medicine dispensing to COVID patients (Puri et al, 2020 ). Solar drier: A young student after completing an internship at a non-government organization (NGO) in Indore district of Madhya Pradesh Province decided to help farmers to reduce the wastage of their fresh produce and subsequently designed a portable solar drier that could dry the fresh farm produce such as rose petals and some vegetables, at very affordable cost, thus increasing their shelf life for more than a year.…”

“…Similarly, another NOIDA-based firm New Life Company got approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for a rapid testing kit at a cost of about 7.5 USD. Big companies also contributed to innovation; for example, Bangalore-based biotechnology firm has come out with a strip-based testing kit that was clinically tested and evaluated by ICMR as a deployable solution (Puri et al, 2020 ).…”