Nurse Robots: A Necessity in the Nursing Care System during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

At present, the use of nursing robots as one of the intelligent health care systems to infection control and maintain is necessary to prevention and control of Covid-19. These robots can be used to perform repetitive, tedious and dangerous activities that expose nurses to the Covid-19 such as delivering food to the patient, measuring vital signs, disinfecting the environments, collecting hazardous waste, tracking patients and carriers and monitoring the quarantined environments. Also, nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swab sampling and monitored changing in patients' blood parameters can be performed by nursing robots and significantly reduce the transmission of infection and promote the occupational safety .The use of nursing robots has solved the ergonomic problems of nurses, including the problem of moving people and bearing their weight. One of the most common hospital wastes during the Covid-19 crisis is plastic masks, gloves and protective clothing, that their use is inevitable in this crisis. Using robot nursing lead to decrease in environmental pollution. Lack of spiritual and friendly communication with the patient and weakness in providing services to patients who are not alert are among the current limitations of robots. Robots cannot replace nurses, but can be their assistants in the difficult days of dealing with crises such as Covid-19.Although the providing of robots incurs costs for governments, their useful and diverse applications in crises, as well as their durability as part of essential medical equipment, justify their presence in health care systems.Covid-19 pandemic is a challenge that provides an opportunity to identify new solutions to overcome such biological crises. The outbreak of this challenging and deadly epidemic has shown that focusing on hospital smartening is not a luxury and unnecessary thinking, but futurism and investing in maintaining the health of the community and health professionals.