When Will Robot Nurses Be Coming to a Hospital or Home-care Setting Near You?

When will robot nurses come to Sacramento? If the demand is here, locally, sometime in the future you may see robot nurses or robots doing work that real people are doing now. See the article, Robot nurses seen in five years | The Japan Times Online. It is hoped robots will play a key role in supporting Japan's rapidly aging population. In Sacramento, will robot nurses be sent to skilled nursing homes as caregivers for the elderly? A robot nurse can be designed to easily lift patients out of bed, especially heavy patients.

See the video, Robot nurse of the future? Would robot nurses and caregivers be more in demand than human nurses? And would older people prefer a human or a robot caregiver, for example, if the older adult was confined to bed in a state nursing home and insisted on a camera to video record the caregiver, human or robot?

What would you want if you needed a nurse? Or would robot nurses remain as observers reporting information to humans as they moved from one hospital room to another? Also see the video, Actroid-F: Japanese Hospitals Test 1st Realistic Robot Nurse (Video).

But what happens if there's a shortage of nurses or teachers in Sacramento? Will robots take the place of staff when there's not enough money to pay staff? Or perhaps there may be not enough graduates to fill the jobs available in the future? Here's a glimpse into the world of robot nurses being developed in Japan.

There's another robot nurse in Japan, designed to look more like a big, cuddly teddy bear than a human. See the website, RIBA Robot Nurse Coming To Hospitals In Japan - Gizmo Watch. RIBA, - "Robot for Interactive Body Assistance," can help lift patients, including some heavy people, from out of their beds or wheelchairs. Can the average nurse do heavy lifting all day (or night)?

With the more human-looking robot-nurse, Actroid-F, that robot's current job is to monitor patients by observing them in hospitals in order to gauge patient reactions. How would you react to a robot nurse? Right now, she's just an observer. What if the robot went awry and kept jabbing you with a needle or giving you too high of a dose of some drug? Would you trust a robot nurse more than a real nurse?

Think of a nurse like this someday in holistic child care. Would you trust her more than a real nanny? You'd better keep a camera on the robot (and the human) to find out over the long-term. Can a robot be trusted if programmed without emotions? What's your opinion on the holistic family appeal of a robot nurse or nanny should one someday come to Sacramento?

The robot nurse in the uTube video in the sidebar here is a real robot. She is called "Nurse" Actroid-F. And this female robot is designed with accurate human expressions and motions, such as smiling, blinking, head movements, eyebrow lifting, speaking, lip movements, and frowning. She displays motions, but not emotions.

She's made in the image of a Japanese woman and looks life-like. What name would you give her? This Actroid-F robot is an improved version of Actroid, the humanoid unveiled in 2005 by Japan's Kokoro Co. Ltd. and ATR. Just think if the robot made less errors than the estimated rate of human errors, who would be the better nurse on hospital duty, perhaps at night without losing sleep or having health issues from working the night shift for decades?

What jobs would be the most suitable in Sacramento for a robot nurse in the near future? And what would her salary be, if any? Think about the effects on human nursing jobs. Then again, perhaps her work would be more of an observer on call who reports information to humans. You have robot 'arms' that do better surgery than human hands. Roles for robots are increasing in hospital settings as well as in home-care and maintenance. Her actions are limited, but she looks almost like a real person.