Bengaluru: Fortis Hospital introduces robot for coronavirus screening

In a bid to protect healthcare workers and intensify screening process, Fortis Hospital said on Friday it has introduced Mitra robot for COVID-19 screening.

The initiative has been taken to screen each and every visitor including doctors, nurses, medical and non- medical staff entering the hospital at Bannerghatta Road, a press release here said.

The robot interacts using facial and speech recognition contextual help and autonomous navigation and screens the visitor for symptoms for COVID-19 such as fever, cough and cold.

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This initiative will allow healthcare workers to remain at a safe distance from the highly infectious coronavirus, the statement read.

The hospital said that the robotic screening is carried out in two phases.

The first robot placed at the entrance of the hospital conducts basic screening that includes temperature check followed by a few questions on symptoms of cough and cold.

If the temperature of the individual is normal with no signs of cough and cold, the robot prints an entry pass that mentions screening results as pass along with the name and picture of the person.

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In case, an individual has a high temperature or confirms to the robot about cough and cold, the robot will print the pass that will state screening result as fail.

Based on this screening result, the person will be guided to the next robot which will connect the individual to the flu clinic that will allow the doctor to further diagnose the individual without any physical contact, the hospital said.

Commenting on this initiative, Dr Manish Mattoo, Zonal Director, Fortis Hospitals, Bengaluru, said "the high infection rates among health care workers across the world have hampered efforts to tackle COVID-19 pandemic that prompted us to consider robotic screening."

He also said the hospital is screening patients, their attendees, and staff at the hospital entrance to ensure no one with the symptoms of COVID-19 is entering the hospital premises.