Advances in patient monitoring have become so extensive, that even the world of nursing now has competition. A routine visit to the doctor once involved a long procedure to take a patient’s blood pressure, pulse, body temperature, etc, a process that typically depended on nurses. Today, an array of machines can monitor patient vitals, however the medical tricorder, a handheld data collector from the world of Star Trek, may soon come to life. In 2012 Qualcomm announced they would give a prize of ten million dollars to anyone who could develop the medical tricorder (Govette, 2016). In order to serve as a true functioning system, it would have to have the abilities to monitor patient vitals such as blood flow, pressure, and temperature, detect whether a person is healthy or not, and diagnose a disease. Additionally, medical engineers are in the process of developing cameras to add to existing patient vital monitoring machines. One such project came out of Oxford University’s Oxehealth; they use photoplethysmography, “the measurement of tiny changes in the color of your body, which briefly turns slightly redder each time your heart beats.” It utilizes a standard video camera as a health monitor camera that can detect a person’s heart and breathing rate from meters away in a less intrusive style than the current system of tubes and wires (Torrance, 2017). Oxehealth began as a startup, but has since received a warm welcome from media outlets, such as BBC, and also commercial markets. The Oxehealth platform is now branching out into the world of baby monitoring devices, which has also been met with great reception and successful prototypes. (RealWire, 2015) Thus it serves as a great example of a truly prosperous replacement for nurses and other current models of monitoring.
In the world of nursing, robotic assistants have also helped to reduce the numbers of nurses who get injured each year from lifting patients off their beds. RIBA, the robot for interactive body assistance, is the first robot that can lift and transfer a patient from a bed to a wheelchair. It is able to accomplish this by using its very strong, human-like arms and highly accurate sensors. (Govette, 2016).
Recent developments are stealing yet another role of nurses, that is, operation room assistance. Nurses often care for patients before and after surgical procedures. In addition, they assist doctors and oversee patient vitals and comfort during surgery. At Purdue University in Indiana, Juan Pablo Wachs, PhD, and assistant professor of industrial engineering, has initiated a powerful new prototype that can recognize hand gestures, specifically aimed for use in an operating room. An article by HealthLeadersMedia.com explains how it must first recognize a doctor’s hand gestures and translate it to the action of passing the correct surgical tool requested. This could prove to be extremely successful, efficient, and accessible, since it would involve a single robot with the ability to truly replace a nurse’s presence during any part of the surgical procedure. Ultimately, the prototype aims to help ease assisting a doctor during surgery but, ironically, the doctors are its main deterrents. Not only does each doctor differ in his or her style of hand gestures, but they also could jeopardize the functionality of the machine by engaging in a casual conversation with another human being. This allows for loopholes in the effectiveness of the prototype, especially since robots still cannot understand human concepts of sarcasm and may even hand the wrong tools over if it interprets a hand gesture incorrectly.
Following the release of the aforementioned article published by HealthLeadersMedia.com, the website wrote a follow-up article addressing the controversy that took the form of several emails and discussions. The author bluntly describes her experience from the backlash, stating “It didn’t take long for nurses to complain to me about the use of the term ‘nurse’ and the implications that robots could replace humans.” (Hendren 2011) The criticisms mainly stemmed from the usage of the word nurse in the article that seemed to offend readers who thought it undermined a nurse’s true role. One of the main critics of the earlier article, Sandy Summers, the RN, MSN, MPH, founder and executive director of The Truth About Nursing, stated:
“Robots cannot detect subtle changes in patients before they crash and intervene to save their lives, …robots cannot advocate for patients and correct the surgeon who is removing a gallbladder instead of removing a pancreatic tumor, because he forgot which patient this was. Robots cannot eject drunk surgeons from the operating room.” (Hendren 2011)
This quote highlights the role of nurses as not just assistants to doctors, but also as integral parts of the hospital experience for patients. Another one of the main critics of the original publication critiques that the role of nurses was described as a degraded version of real life and that television programs such as ER and Grey’s Anatomy portray nurses as “invisible minions who carry out low-skilled tasks such as emptying bed pans and bringing food trays.” Nurses do not just perform menial tasks that can be completed by just about anyone. Nurses are responsible for the true substance of patient care, most directly seen in how patients and their families will see a nurse significantly more often than a doctor. Although doctors are sometimes thought to be the speedy diagnosis deliverers, it is often a nurse’s touch and compassion that determines a patient’s level of comfort during a lengthy hospital stay.
