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SINGAPORE – As you walk through the gates of Ng Teng Fong General Hospital next month, a robot will scan your SafeEntry log and record your temperature.
The security and concierge robot will also detect visitors and patients who do not wear masks or follow the rules of social distancing, and will deny entry to these visitors who do not comply with the rules.
The robot will be deployed at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital from October and will also be in action at Alexandra Hospital from November.
Around the same time, the National University Hospital (NUH) will have a roaming security robot that can identify suspicious activities such as crowds and people lurking in restricted areas, and alert security officers in the control room.
The three hospitals are part of the public health care group of the National University Health System (NUHS).
In a statement on Thursday (September 24), NUHS said that robots, drones and contactless technologies will become the new normal.
The shift to technology-based solutions comes as hospitals seek to minimize labor-intensive operations and move to a more efficient, safe, and productive way of managing their facilities.
This will not only save time but reduce costs by at least 50 percent at each hospital, NUHS said.
“We are not using technology to replace our colleagues on the NUHS Group Facilities Management Team,” emphasized Mr. Ng Kian Swan, NUHS Director of Operations.
“Instead, the technologies will be used to support them in their work and give them the opportunity to retrain and improve their skills.”
Some staff members are learning on the job while working with Internet of Things sensors, for example, and others have been sent to courses to learn how to fly drones, Ng added.
With bots on the front lines patrolling and observing, security officers can focus on value-added tasks, such as using video analytics to review images sent by robots, responding to emergencies, and spreading security awareness.
As for drones, they are already being used to scan the exterior of buildings, looking for hazards and areas that need maintenance work, such as cracks and water leaks.
NUHS is the first organization within the local healthcare scene to use drones to inspect hospitals.
Equipped with high-resolution cameras, the drones can capture video and images of hard-to-reach areas such as roof gutters, and detect leaf blockages in drains and pools of water on roofs – a potential breeding ground for Aedes mosquitoes.
The drones transmit live images of areas in need of repair to the operator on the ground.
With drones, a job that took workers days to manually inspect can now be done in a few hours. Ng said this allows hospitals to complete four rounds of inspections a year and keep buildings in top condition.
Previously, the gondolas, manned and moved by workers, were used to inspect the building’s facades. Workers were also exposed to danger when climbing stairs and walking on weak roofs and ledges.
To prevent the transmission of bacteria and viruses, the four hospitals will install non-contact buttons on elevators that patients and visitors use frequently, for the next year.
To test this, some elevators were installed in Tower B of Ng Teng Fong General Hospital with touchless buttons.
Hospitals have also recently adopted IoT sensors, such as flood and fire preventive measures.
These sensors are used to monitor water and wastewater levels in certain locations in and around hospitals, while thermal sensors track humidity to prevent damage from computers overheating, for example.
“We are increasing the capabilities of our people and partners to achieve operational efficiencies without downtime, profitability, energy optimization and sustainability,” said Mr. Ng. .
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