Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital

Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital has been selected as a provider in the social problem resolution sector of the ‘AI⋅5G-based large-scale robot convergence model demonstration project’ hosted by Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

It is an open call government project designed by KIRIA to respond to the growing demand for non-contact services after the COVID-19 pandemic and use robots as solutions to social problems.

The Gyeonggi-do consortium in which Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital is participating will carry out a demonstration project of the robot convergence model of medical staff assistance and emergency response for two years for social problems in the medical field including virus infections and aging.

The objective of the project is to build an 'integrated control system' by using robots. For this, 75 robots of five types including quarantine, non-contact multidisciplinary care, guidance, delivery of goods, and home monitoring will be deployed in the hospital. By entrusting robots with services such as quarantine, delivery, guidance, and health check that humans have done so far, the hospital expects more effective in-hospital infection control and a reduced workload of medical staff and caregivers.

This project is expected to upgrade the quality of medical care for the elderly population and the patients under home care services. When the IoMT technology-based remote patient monitoring center detects unstable biometric information through a wearable device, the medical team uses three different types of robots to respond quickly.

Hallym’s Command Center will be taking control of the overall operation of the robots and establishing the integrated management system.

“We have experts on digital transformation who have involved in a smart hospital model development project and various process improvement projects,” said Director Me Yeon Lee of the Command Center. She added, “We will successfully demonstrate the robots and prove them useful at the hospital site.”

An official from BIGWAVE ROBOTICS, one of consortium participant, said, “The existing robot control system is difficult to use except for professional personnel and the biggest problem is the gap from the actual business operation process because detailed operation plans or management methods are not considered.” He added, “Based on the various references and technical capabilities from Marosol, a robot specialized platform, we will support this project by making robots to be most effective when they are actually put into the medical field.”

Meanwhile, Gyeonggido Business & Science Accelerator (GBSA) plans to actively spread this model of medical service robot into the province. To this end, GBSA will work on publicizing the achievements and easing restrictions in robotics to nurture the robot industry.

By Hyun Ho Choi, Int’l Cooperation Team, HUMC (dullie1989@hallym.or.kr)