Coming Back To Star Trek
Back in the early nineties, when I was in my last year at Purdue, something happened to me which I never thought would entire my life: I became a Star Trek junkie. Now, it was being a very specific type of junkie. And, that claim to fame belongs to TNG, or for non-Trekkies, “The Next Generation”. I know that a bunch of other offshoots of TNG existed after the final episode, and to be honest, I don’t where we are in the present about Star Trek. I do remember seeing the last movie which came out a few years ago, and it was just totally awesome. I remember when I watched those shows, the one thing I always marveled were the little life forms and robots which would traverse their way across the NCC-1701D.
Probably my most favored moment were the little “Nannites”, and in the first generation of Star Trek (in the days of Kirk, Bones, and Spock), it was the “Tribbles”. Although I am far removed from the field of robotics, from what I understand, this field has been advancing at quite a clip, and yes, robots are now making their ways across the corridors in America. One such application is in the medical sector, at Sinai Hospital, where something known as “TUG Robots” are being used.
Here is some insight: “Sinai Hospital, a member of the LifeBridge Health System in Baltimore, reduced pharmacy medication delivery time by 45 percent, experienced significant labor savings, and dramatically decreased the number of missing doses through its use of autonomous mobile robots and an automated medication tracking solution . . . by implementing both the TUG autonomous mobile robots the hospital reported that medication delivery time dropped from 60 to 33 minutes, while eliminating the need for the 6.2 full-time equivalents associated with their former manual delivery process. Additionally, upon implementing MedEx, their missing medication doses immediately decreased 20 percent resulting in an annualized savings of $150,000.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/9438/).
My Take
Actually, as I think about it, I may have even mentioned something about this robotics technology some time last year in a previous posting. Anyways, I did some research into what a TUGS robot really is, and I came up with a ton of information about it. Yes, they really are truly robots, and yes, they do move around, even talk, and even can find their way around elevators, hallways, and other common obstructions in a building, pretty much, no matter what the environment is.
In fact, here is a brief example of them, at this particular hospital: “Four robots are working overtime at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, MD, and their hard work is speeding up medication deliveries . . . the robots don't complain, get tired, or need a break no matter how many hours they work. The mobile TUG robots—dubbed Rigby, Herbie the love TUG, Jake, and Elwood—simply coast the facility's hallways 24 hours a day, seven days a week, delivering medications to the nursing stations.Thanks to all their hard work, staff who previously delivered medication have been able to spend more time on patient care and less on pushing carts. The hospital brought Aethon's TUG system, which was developed to assist hospitals in delivering and tracking supplies, on board in September, and the robots deliver medications to the nursing stations about every 45 minutes. Previously we were using staff who were doing hourly deliveries . . . Our goal with the TUGs was 30-minute deliveries. We have not reached it yet, but we are getting closer.” (SOURCE: http://www.strategiesfornursemanagers.com/ce_detail/222184.cfm).
So as you can see, these robots are truly a remarkable component to this hospital. These robots can deliver everything from newspapers, to food for the patients, and even handle the delivering of medications. It should be noted though that in this regard, the delivering of medicines is just restricted to delivering them to the nurse’s station, from where at that point, an actual human will dispense of it to the actual patient (personally, I would want somebody with a beating heart to deliver medication, not just a bunch of wires and machinery). From what I can best understand, one of the primary purposes of these robots is to help cut the delivery time of medications and other such necessities, thus freeing up the nurse’s (or other medical professional) time to actually tending to patients.
The benefits of this time reduction can be seen directly up above in the quote, no need to rehash them again. Apart from time and productivity savings, significant financial benefits have also been gained, as a result. At this point, you may be asking where does Biometrics fit into all of this? Well, it was mentioned in the Press Release, but I can’t leave it at just that. I did some more research, and it seems like that fingerprint recognition is the technology which is primarily used the most. Obviously, a robot can’t use this (unless they are unique features in the metallic structures of its hand), so, I am assuming this point of Biometrics resides when the nurse has to verify and/or confirm their own identity into the robot, so it has proper “authorization” to do its routine tasks, every day.
Meaning, the nurse’s fingerprint gives the robot the “go ahead” to deliver stuff. So, watch for Biometrics to take part in this exciting industry as well, as we approach into the new year of 2012. It should also be noted that there are some 400+ TUGS robots into existence today, at over 135 hospitals, logging over 50,000+ deliveries on a weekly basis.
This is just another prime example of how Biometrics encompasses just about every aspect of our daily lives . . . .
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