The rise of robots in surgical environments during COVID-19

Zemmar, Ajmal; Lozano, Andrés M.; Nelson, Bradley J.

doi:10.1038/s42256-020-00238-2

Cited by 144 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…shorter staying time, less blood loss, and smaller incisions, encourages the surgical utilisation, especially in the background of the pandemic [ 46 , 81 ]. The scenarios before, during and after the operation were outlined by Zemmar et al [ 82 ], and robots and AI were suggested to reduce the infectious contamination and support the patient management, especially in the scenario of immense patient influx.…”

Section: Robots In Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

A literature survey of the robotic technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wang

2021

Journal of Manufacturing Systems

195

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Since the late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has been spread all around the world. The pandemic is a critical challenge to the health and safety of the general public, the medical staff and the medical systems worldwide. It has been globally proposed to utilise robots during the pandemic, to improve the treatment of patients and leverage the load of the medical system. However, there is still a lack of detailed and systematic review of the robotic research for the pandemic, from the technologies’ perspective. Thus a thorough literature survey is conducted in this research and more than 280 publications have been reviewed, with the focus on robotics during the pandemic. The main contribution of this literature survey is to answer two research questions, i.e. 1) what the main research contributions are to combat the pandemic from the robotic technologies’ perspective, and 2) what the promising supporting technologies are needed during and after the pandemic to help and guide future robotics research. The current achievements of robotic technologies are reviewed and discussed in different categories, followed by the identification of the representative work’s technology readiness level. The future research trends and essential technologies are then highlighted, including artificial intelligence, 5 G, big data, wireless sensor network, and human-robot collaboration.

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Section: Robots In Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

A literature survey of the robotic technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wang

2021

Journal of Manufacturing Systems

195

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…These features are 1) depth perception; 2) dexterity enhancement; 3) improved accuracy; 4) better hand-eye coordination; and 5) and multiple tools delivery through a single incision (Atashzar and Patel, 2018). Moreover, in teleoperation, information and operation data can be saved and used for training purposes both for AI supervision and training of novice surgeons (Zemmar et al, 2020). The problem of degraded haptic feedback in conventional laparoscopy has not been solved yet.…”

Section: Robotics-assisted Surgerymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the application of AI in surgical procedures requires a significant amount of adaptation and consideration. Robotic surgery can take advantage of AI in the COVID era from three aspects; 1) increasing accuracy and reducing the risk of failure by providing shared and full autonomy in simple tasks (Rabinovich et al, 2020;Wall and Krummel, 2020); 2) allowing physical distancing by changing the surgeon's role from executive and continuous control to supervisory and intermittent control; and 3) increasing the average number of surgical procedures, which will be required to address the backlogged surgeries caused by the shutdown of elective surgeries over a long period of time, thereby reducing the load on surgeons and allowing after-hour surgeries (Zemmar et al, 2020).…”

Section: Robotics-assisted Surgerymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, AI can be used for digital triage to direct patients to the most appropriate medical center based on the resources and their condition before they show up in emergency rooms (Lai et al, 2020). As another example, it has been shown that blood draw and injections can be done with portable robots using AI more accurately and faster than a manual procedure (Zemmar et al, 2020). Another example is the telerobotic system that has been used in China to perform cardiac and lung ultrasound on a COVID patient (Wang et al, 2020).…”

Section: Tele-examination Of Patientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Robotics and AI for Teleoperation, Tele-Assessment, and Tele-Training for Surgery in the Era of COVID-19: Existing Challenges, and Future Vision

et al. 2021

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The unprecedented shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has severely influenced the delivery of regular healthcare services. Most non-urgent medical activities, including elective surgeries, have been paused to mitigate the risk of infection and to dedicate medical resources to managing the pandemic. In this regard, not only surgeries are substantially influenced, but also pre- and post-operative assessment of patients and training for surgical procedures have been significantly impacted due to the pandemic. Many countries are planning a phased reopening, which includes the resumption of some surgical procedures. However, it is not clear how the reopening safe-practice guidelines will impact the quality of healthcare delivery. This perspective article evaluates the use of robotics and AI in 1) robotics-assisted surgery, 2) tele-examination of patients for pre- and post-surgery, and 3) tele-training for surgical procedures. Surgeons interact with a large number of staff and patients on a daily basis. Thus, the risk of infection transmission between them raises concerns. In addition, pre- and post-operative assessment also raises concerns about increasing the risk of disease transmission, in particular, since many patients may have other underlying conditions, which can increase their chances of mortality due to the virus. The pandemic has also limited the time and access that trainee surgeons have for training in the OR and/or in the presence of an expert. In this article, we describe existing challenges and possible solutions and suggest future research directions that may be relevant for robotics and AI in addressing the three tasks mentioned above.

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“…Delegation to a robot typically raises questions of (1) how can the robot's task be specified clearly enough, so the robot knows exactly what to do; (2) how can one ensure that the robot will perform the specified task safely and correctly; and (3) how to manage unexpected events and uncertainty. A recent classification distinguished development in autonomous surgery 15 between level 0 (teleoperation) 16 and level 5 (full autonomy) 17 , with few systems reaching beyond level 2 for task autonomy, such as that for autonomous suturing 18 . Autonomous physical interactions with bony rigid tissue anatomy based on preoperative model acquisition and computer-assisted surgical planning have already improved surgical outcomes.…”

Section: Increased Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%