Thai Hospital Utilizes Robots to improve safety and efficiency

Tagged: Bangkok, Boxpicker, Bumrungrad, Bumrungrad International Hospital, Chang Foo, Medical Tourism, Pill Picker, Swisslog, Thailand, Travel

The Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok Thailad is taking advantage of robotics to improve safety and efficiency in the hospital. According to Chang Foo, the Chief Technology Officer at the Bumrumgrad Hospital, technology and robotics have helped them eliminate errors in the hospital.

There are two robots used in the hospital that have significantly improved the safety of the hospital. These two robots are the BoxPicker and the PillPicker.  The Pillpicker is a machine that sorts pills according to dosages and places then in plastic bags with barcodes and then place them in storage.  The BoxPicker will then pick out the right medicines when the prescription arrives and then places them in a package with a news barcode that indicates for whom the medicines are for. With these two systems in place, it would take malicious intent to administer the wrong medicine to patients. The barcode of the systems indicate what the pill is, who it is for, the dosage the patient needs as well as what time the medication should be administered.

Aside from these two systems there are other high-technology systems used in the Thai hospital. Many of the systems come from Swisslog systems.  The hospital also uses a Swisslog pneumatic tube system to help deliver medicine packs to the patient’s floor.  The system is system is similar to tube systems used by offices to deliver documents to office buildings.

Robots are not likely to replace jobs in hospitals but they contribute to processes where errors can be fatal.  The robots are machines that help in ensuring that errors can be avoided especially since thousands of people die every year due to human error.