Good news! The dystopian future of Skynet automated surgeries and an unemotional, robotic nurse has been put off another day. Medical professionals won today’s battle in the fight against robots being placed in jobs, heretofore held by humans, when it was announced that the newest high end medical product from Johnson & Johnson named Sedasys, an automated patient sedation robot, will be pulled from the market.
Before being released, Sedasys was quickly stirring controversy in the medical community. Besides the loss of anesthesia-related jobs, deploying the robot also meant that patients would no longer enjoy calming, informative pre-op communications with their anesthesia providers. Instead they will find themselves face-to-face with non-emotive machines that might pose safety issues otherwise avoided with an anesthesiologist of the human type. Once the robot was officially placed on sale, several outlets began reporting that demand wasn’t anywhere near the quantities needed for Johnson & Johnson to justify continuing production.
Looking to cut costs and increase efficiency is natural in today’s tech-oriented business environment. However, creating a situation in which patient safety is compromised and jobs are lost represents a clear lose-lose for people, and for healthcare. It comes as a relief that patients and the medical profession agree, we are not ready for robotic nurses, yet.
Somnia Anesthesia greatly values patient satisfaction and offers patients access to compassionate, high quality clinical care delivered by the best and brightest professionals. For nearly 20 years we have provided a service that improves OR efficiency increases ROI and lowers costs for hospitals, surgery centers and medical offices nationwide. If your facility is in need of anesthesia guidance and improvement, contact us.