Robots Are Quietly Taking Over Healthcare: From Surgery to Elder Care

Robotic pharmacists can dispense medications; nanorobots can manage treatments for cancer and other diseases; some robots assist in disease diagnosis, such as aiding in Pap smear examinations; others effectively provide 24-hour care for the elderly; surgical robotics has become a multi-billion-dollar industry... According to Dr. Steven Wartman, President and CEO of the Association of Academic Health Centers, a scenario once confined to science fiction is gradually becoming reality: robots are poised to take over the healthcare sector in their own way. VCBeat has compiled the following report to examine how far this field has progressed and to explore a hotly debated topic: Can robotic applications in healthcare replace human labor?

On May 19, 2015, at the Cleveland Clinic’s 6th Annual “Patient Experience: Empathy + Innovation Summit,” Wartman discussed the topic of “The Marriage of Medicine and Machines.” Although he briefly touched upon the field of medical technology, he quickly returned to the central theme of patient empathy.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun over the next 30 minutes,” said Wartman, presenting a series of film clips to illustrate the “evolution” of human-machine relationships. Over the past three decades, Hollywood has crafted many cinematic portrayals in this regard. His selections included Short Circuit (1986), I, Robot (2004), and Her (2013).

Wartman also screened the 2013 film “Her,” in which a lonely divorcee falls in love with an artificial intelligence operating system. Using this as a springboard, Wartman constructed his framework for discussing love for machines.

“We are in an era of the rise of intelligent machines,” said Wartman. “They are lurking all around us,” he explained. “I don’t think we have given this issue enough thought.”

(In a post-event interview outside the conference room, Wartman stated that he was optimistic robots would not turn against humanity, unlike HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey” or Skynet from “The Terminator,” which seeks human extinction. Yet, perhaps subconsciously, Wartman had quoted the title of “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” during his on-stage remarks.)

“I don’t know exactly what direction machine development will take, but its pace will be extremely rapid, and we need to manage it,” said Wartman.

Wartman does not believe that robots will replace humans. Before showing a clip from the viral video titled “Humans Need Not Apply,” he asked, “Can intelligent machines replace human labor, just as internal combustion engines replaced horse power?” He then explained, “More and better technology will create more and better job opportunities for humans.”

In the medical field, he refers to this as “the new physics of patient care,” represented by Einstein’s theory of relativity formula E = MC⁴. (Wartman stated that his inspiration came from a talk given by Intel’s Eric Dishman at TEDMED in 2009.) Here, M stands for population, encompassing both individuals and collectives, while the four C’s represent:

Care Anywhere (Care Is Everywhere)—“People have become very accustomed to getting what they need with a click,” said Wartman. He explained that people will connect to the healthcare system through their smartphones and use this connection to manage their own health.

Team-Based Care——According to Wartman, the “sacred” one-on-one relationship between physicians and patients is being replaced by relationships involving multiple disciplines. He asks, “How can people receive the most valuable team-based care?”

Care in Large Datasets—“Finally, I think we will all continue to monitor the dynamics of various intelligent machines,” said Wartman. Healthcare needs a new “interpretive and functional infrastructure” to manage large datasets.

Care by Machines—“Machines do not need to be perfect; they only need to make fewer errors than humans,” Wartman further explained, noting that machines have the advantage of not experiencing fatigue or age-related decline in capability, and “HR departments do not spend much time on machines.”

“I worry that people are not dedicating sufficient time and attention to these machines. Yet the reality is that they are imperceptibly permeating our daily work,” said Wartman.

He spent the final half-hour playing a clip from another film: a dance scene from the recently released movie “Ex Machina.” “If you can dance with a robot, what more could you ask for?” Wartman joked.

Compiled by: Chen Xin Edited by: Luo Xiaosou