Open AccessCan Robots Improve Testing Capacity for SARS-CoV-2?
Author(s) -
Kathrin Cresswell,
Sandeep Ramalingam,
Aziz Sheikh
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
jmir. journal of medical internet research/journal of medical internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.446
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1439-4456
pISSN - 1438-8871
DOI - 10.2196/20169
Subject(s) - robot , covid-19 , health care , risk analysis (engineering) , work (physics) , computer science , process (computing) , transmission (telecommunications) , medicine , business , engineering , artificial intelligence , disease , telecommunications , mechanical engineering , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics , economic growth , operating system
There is currently increasing interest internationally in deploying robotic applications for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing, as these can help to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus to health care staff and patients. We provide an overview of key recent developments in this area. We argue that, although there is some potential for deploying robots to help with SARS-CoV-2 testing, the potential of patient-facing applications is likely to be limited. This is due to the high costs associated with patient-facing functionality, and risks of potentially adverse impacts on health care staff work practices and patient interactions. In contrast, back-end laboratory-based robots dealing with sample extraction and amplification, that effectively integrate with established processes, software, and interfaces to process samples, are much more likely to result in safety and efficiency gains. Consideration should therefore be given to deploying these at scale.