In recent times, robotics have be tightly integrated into everyone’s daily life. Robots have made en route in almost every industry, not excluding healthcare.
Robots are helping in advancing the healthcare industry because healthcare workers have always been working with cutting-edge technology. These days, robots used in the industry can be divided into two major categories, medical robots and surgical robots. While surgical robots are used during operations and procedures by surgeons, medical robots are used across a wider range of applications, from administrative tasks in clinical settings to outpatient care.
Read Also: How AI is Impacting Healthcare Industry
Top 10 Medical and Robotics Companies
- Diligent Robotics
- Myomo
- ReWalk Robotics
- Energid Technologies
- Intuitive Surgical
- Barrett Technology
- Ansensus Surgical
- Harvard Biodesign Lab
- SoftBank Robotics
Medical Robots
There are many robots serving different purposes in the healthcare realm. The “telepresence” robots enable doctors to attend to patients from remote locations, if the doctor can’t be physically present. Rehabilitation robots, on their own aid patients in making certain movements employed in post-surgical recovery or for other reasons.
Robots also assist in medical inventory transportation, tracking and management, prescription drug dispensing, and sanitation and clinical management to relief human healthcare workers of such tasks, so they can focus more on their patients. In the older adult care sector, companion robots can also assist reduce anxiety and depression caused by loneliness.
Surgical Robots
There are many robotics but the best known robotics applications in existence in healthcare and medicine are surgical robotics. Ranging from organ transplants, gastrointestinal procedures, spine surgery to urological operations are performed with the aid of different types of robots.
Surgical robots require highly trained surgeons who specialize in robot-assisted surgeries to operate them. These robots enable surgeons to make more precise incisions and have helped pioneer new minimally invasive ways to perform a wide range of surgical procedures, fast tracking the patients' recovery process and time.
Medical and Surgical Robotics Companies
Many medtech companies are currently innovating robotic solutions to meet the needs of healthcare workers and patients.
Here we have compiled 11 examples of such medical and surgical robotic applications in healthcare — and the companies behind them.
Best 11 Medical and Surgical Robotics Enhancing Healthcare
Location: Austin, Texas
Diligent’s AI-enabled robots are designed to work with people in everyday environments. The company has autonomous Moxi robot which can independently perform time-consuming logistical tasks in hospitals such as setting up patient rooms and restocking supplies. Moxi is even imbued with social intelligence that’s conveyed through its head movements and LED eyes that makes it to be able to navigate through hospital hallways plus other tight spaces.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas was the first U.S. hospital to use Diligent’s Moxi robot so its clinical staff could focus more on patient care in 2018. Many healthcare facilities have started to adopt the use Moxi full time in clinical settings. Examples some hospitals that use Moxi are Medical City Dallas’ Heart and Spine hospitals in 2020 and Christiana Hospital in 2022. The robot has the capabilities of performing tasks like stocking supplies, delivering blood samples and updating patients’ medical records.
Location: Marlborough, Massachusetts
ReWalk produces exoskeletons robots for personal and commercial rehab use. The light, battery-powered system, the ReWalk Personal 6.0, is a wearable exoskeleton with motors at the hip and knee joints. The body shifting spurs motion closely resembles that of human legs.
One of the success stories of the use of ReWalk Personal 6.0 was a Portland, Oregon
police officer, who was paralyzed in 2012 while on duty, wore one of ReWalk’s exoskeletons to stand while raising his hand and swearing an oath as he accepted a promotion to sergeant in 2019. Also in 2021, the FDA granted the company’s ReBoot exo-suit
breakthrough device designation.
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Myomo’s powered brace MyoPro serves as aid to people who are experiencing paralysis or weakening in their hands and arms as a result of some conditions. The device reads nerve signals from the skin’s surface, then activates small motors that facilitate natural arm and hand movements.
"MyoPro is a powered arm and hand orthosis (brace) designed to help restore function to the wearer's paralyzed or weakened upper extremities, helping individuals perform actions and daily activities that might otherwise be impossible. The MyoPro may also facilitate rehabilitation including muscle re-education and increasing range of motion," –
information on the company's website says.
MyoPro model was launched in 2018 for adolescents, and in 2020, the company received license to be a Medicare provider.
Presently, Myomo, in partnership with Chinaleaf and Ryzur Medical is in process of expanding its operations to China.
According to Myomo Financial officer, David,
plans are underway for the production and distribution of MyoPro technology in China for people with upper-limb paralysis.
