ABB has opened its first global health care research hub on the Texas Medical Center (TMC) campus, in Houston, Tex., where it is showcasing a number of concept technologies, including a mobile YuMi robot, which will be designed to assist medical and laboratory staff with laboratory and logistics tasks in hospitals.
The dual-arm mobile collaborative robot will be able to sense and navigate its way around its human co-workers autonomously while learning to find different routes from one location to another. YuMi has the potential to undertake a wide range of repetitive and time-consuming activities, including preparing medicines, loading and unloading centrifuges, pipetting and handling liquids, and picking up and sorting test tubes.
Mobile robots could also be used in hospitals for a wide variety of future logistics roles. For example, robots may be able to dispense medicines, transport them to where they are needed in hospitals, and deliver medical supplies to hospital staff and bed linens to patients’ rooms.
At the new TMC Innovation Institute, ABB will develop robots that can carry out repetitive, delicate, and mundane processes, leaving highly skilled medical and laboratory staff free to undertake more valuable roles and ultimately treat more patients. ABB analysis shows that repetitive tasks could be completed up to 50 percent faster with automation, compared to current manual processes performed by people, with the added benefit that robots can work 24 hours a day.
“The health-care sector is undergoing a significant transformation as the diagnosis and treatment of disease advances, while coping with an aging population, increasing costs, and a growing worldwide shortage of medical staff. With our new health-care research and development hub at TMC, we are aiming to develop answers to these challenges—together with the best minds in academia, science and medicine,” said Sami Atiya, president of ABB’s Robotics and Discrete Automation business. “Our experience in industrial and collaborative robotics will give us a strong basis to be able to adapt flexible automation to the health-care sector. Together with our partners at TMC, we will develop cutting-edge robotics solutions. We are working to reduce the number of manual procedures performed by medical staff, improve the accuracy of laboratory work, and enhance patient satisfaction, and, ultimately patient safety.”
Other technologies showcased by ABB at the Healthcare Research Hub include YuMi robots that could aid in centrifuge tending and test tube handling systems, and an IRB 1200 robot that could execute liquid transfers in a pipetting application. All are everyday medical laboratory tasks that robotic automation may be able to support by combining consistent performance with a level of flexibility and continuous operation that could increase throughput and quality while minimizing costs.
TMC is the largest medical city in the world with world-class collaborative research resources, including some of the world’s leading companies and hospitals. ABB’s new 5,300-sqaure-foot (500m2) Healthcare Hub will be housed at the TMC Innovation Institute, a state-of-the-art hub that fosters collaboration of medicine and cutting-edge technology, connecting startups with pioneers in academia and leading technology companies to accelerate the development and prototyping of breakthrough medical technology.
“Texas Medical Center, TMC Innovation, and the entire TMC network of member institutions are pleased to welcome ABB on the occasion of its first foray into the health-care space with this incredible and unprecedented new robotics facility,” emphasized Bill McKeon, President & CEO of Texas Medical Center. He added, “A primary goal across TMC—the largest medical city in the world—is to make research happen faster while simultaneously cutting costs to create more rapid and cost-effective solutions for patients who are in desperate need of treatment. ABB’s move into the heart of the Texas Medical Center campus with this first-of-its-kind R&D facility for creating robotics solutions in health care will set a new course for advancements in medicine and establish TMC as the nexus for a new kind of synergistic partnership that will shape the future of health care for clinicians, researchers, and patients alike.”
Robotic automation in the health-care sector offers significant opportunities for future growth. According to internal ABB research, the global market is estimated to reach nearly 60,000 nonsurgical medical robots by 2025, a fourfold increase from 2018.