Artificial intelligence assignment: Social Impact of Robot Nurse

Question

Task

Prepare a report on artificial intelligence assignment on the social impact of the technology. It will detail the intellectual property protection you think is best for the technology; discuss the opportunities/benefits that the technology may bring; and will also discuss potential risks/drawbacks of the technology. Your report should end by summarize the pros and cons of the technology and indicating how it makes a positive contribution to society.

Answer

Introduction
The present artificial intelligence assignment addresses the concept of robot nurse which is the application that will be designed and implemented. It will use the combination of technologies as robotics, machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence. The robot nurse will be designed to perform functions like a human nurse. These will include providing the support and assistance to the patients, perform the physical activities as guided by the medical professional, and make decisions (Wachter, 2017).

The healthcare industry is witnessing massive technological transformation and the robotics and artificial intelligence markets are expected to grow by $6.6 Billion and $2.8 Billion by 2021 respectively.

Intellectual Property Protection
The robot nurse will have access to the Private Health Information (PHI) of the patients. The information is extremely confidential and private in nature. It would be necessary that the information is never exposed to the unauthorized entities and is also never misused. The adherence with the Privacy Act will be necessary while developing the application and post-implementation as well (Weber, 2018).

It would also be necessary that the adherence with the Copyrights protection is maintained so that the healthcare organizations and hospitals authorized to use the robot nurse carry out the utilization.

Opportunities and Benefits
There are numerous opportunities and benefits that robot nurse will provide to all the stakeholders. There are four major stakeholders involved as medical professionals, patients, investors, and hospitals.

The opportunities and benefits that the medical professionals will attain are discussed below within this artificial intelligence assignment:

• Monitoring of the patient health by the robot nurse and the generation of alerts regarding the same. It will enable the medical professionals to offer immediate medical assistance to the patients (Miyawaki et al., 2019)
• 24x7 assistance and support to the patients without any gaps or breaks which is not possible with the human nurse
• Use of sensors and computation abilities to get access to the patient medical records and history and understand the medical signs for better diagnosis.

The patients will also achieve a number of benefits as:

• Non-stop physical and emotional support & assistance by the robot nurse for improved health
• Better diagnosis and treatment with continual monitoring of the health signs (Narula, 2019)

The investors will be showered with the opportunities and benefits as listed below:

• High returns on the investment as the healthcare industry is being transformed with the use of advanced technology. The use of robotics and AI in the healthcare industry will turn massive in 2021 and the upcoming years
• Use of IoT-based systems in the future to have automated medical operations to be executed with robot nurse being an integral part of the same.

The hospitals and medical centres that will implement the technology will also be able to attain several benefits as listed below herein artificial intelligence assignment.

• Competitive edge in the market with the involvement of advanced technology and applications in the organization
• Increased patient satisfaction score resulting in the improved reputation in the market
• Ability to allocate the human nurses for the critical medical operations and activities so that the optimal utilization of the resources is achieved (Parubets, 2020).
• Flexible work hours for the nurses and the medical professionals to have reduced employee turnover and increased employee satisfaction

What are the potential risks associated with the technology focused in the context of artificial intelligence assignment?

There are a few risks that are also associated with the technology.

Privacy & Security Risks
These are the risks that will have an impact on all the stakeholders as medical professionals, patients, investors, and hospitals. The use of the advanced technologies will also include the use of the network channels and the cloud computing services (Sequeira and Kooijman, 2019). The robot nurse will include the storage of the information sets and will have access to the PHI of the patients. It is possible that the privacy of the information sets is compromised with the occurrence of the security and privacy attacks.

There are various such attacks that may emerge, such as malware attacks, network-based security attacks, insider threats, and likewise. The malicious entities may launch these attacks and may gather the information present in the database attached with the robot nurse. This can result in the legal obligations for the investors and the hospitals (Stahl and Coeckelbergh, 2016). Also, the medical professionals associated with the specific cases will be held accountable for such attacks. The confidentiality and privacy of the patient details will also be put at stake.

Employment Risks
The inclusion of robot nurses in the hospitals can lead to confusions and panic among the human nurses. There will be a shift in the existing role and responsibilities that are allotted to the human nurse. It is not possible that the replacement of the human nurse is done with the robot nurse. However, the use of the robot nurse can bring a sense of insecurity in the existing staff (Scully, 2019). This will have negative influences on the patient and the quality of care offered to them. The impact will be faced by the hospitals and medical professionals which may turn in to resistance towards the implementation of the technology. As a result, the loss will be required to be managed by the investors.

Conclusion
The robot nurse will make use of robotics, AI, and ML concepts and will offer numerous benefits to the stakeholders involved. The market of these technologies in the healthcare sector will also expand in the years to come. The risks around the privacy and security can be managed with the use of the security tools and controls. It will be necessary that the administrative, logical, technical, and physical security mechanisms are used so that the risks are avoided. Also, the issues around employment and insecurity among the human nurses shall be managed by the hospital administration. It can be concluded from the above discussion on artificial intelligence assignment that the training and awareness shall be provided to make the members of the staff aware of the benefits and the generation of the new roles. There will be several new employment opportunities that will be created, such as tele-medicine professionals, robot supervisors, technicians, and many more. Also, the replacement of the human nurse will not be done by the robot nurse. Rather, the two shall work in collaboration so that the overall quality, accuracy, and reliability of the healthcare and health assistance services improve.

References
Miyawaki, F., Suzuki, M., Anier, A. and Vain, J. (2019). Integration of ‘Central’ and ‘Peripheral’ Nervous Systems in Scrub Nurse Robot and Comparison Between ‘Voluntary’ and ‘Reflex’ Movements. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 52(19), pp.229–234.

Narula, G. (2019). Smart Robotics for Smart Healthcare. Advances in Robotics & Mechanical Engineering, 1(5).

Parubets, P.E. (2020). Analysis of vibration load of a wheeled robot-nurse using simulation. Politechnical student journal, (44).

Scully, R.P. (2019). Nurse, pass the robot. New Scientist, 242(3234), pp.20–21.

Sequeira and Kooijman (2019). Robotics in Healthcare. Artificial intelligence assignment Springer International Publishing.

Stahl, B.C. and Coeckelbergh, M. (2016). Ethics of healthcare robotics: Towards responsible research and innovation. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, [online] 86, pp.152–161. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921889016305292.

Wachter, R.M. (2017). The digital doctor hope, hype, and harm at the dawn of medicine’s computer age. New York Mcgraw-Hill Education.

Weber, A.S. (2018). Emerging Medical Ethical Issues in Healthcare and Medical Robotics. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, pp.604–607.