Robots Tarzan and Jane, aided by AI, take over repetitive duties at B.C. hospital lab

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VANCOUVER — Removed from the jungle, Tarzan and Jane swing quietly into motion in a sterile laboratory at St. Paul’s Hospital in downtown Vancouver.

They’re robots that work with synthetic intelligence to deal with and course of as much as 70 per cent of the hospital’s microbiology samples.

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The pair unscrew specimen tubes and streak the samples onto bacterial tradition plates within the new $1-million automated WASPLab, quick for “walk-away specimen processor.”

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It’s not glamorous work, but it surely’s a giant job — the St. Paul’s lab handles greater than 145,000 microbiological samples every year from B.C. and Yukon.

Lab automation shouldn’t be new, however the hospital says WASPLab’s use of AI is a primary for Western Canada, assessing and sorting tradition plates, separating bacterial cultures and letting workers know if one thing wants extra evaluation.

Dr. Marc Romney, head of medical microbiology and virology at St. Paul’s, mentioned the brand new stage of automation made docs’ and lab technologists’ lives simpler by releasing them from repetitive handbook work.

Tarzan and Jane have been working on the lab for 2 months. Romney mentioned they’re “nice staff,” keen to work early morning and late shifts and in a position to cope with a big batch of samples all of sudden.

“We admire the truth that they’re permitting the lab workers to carry out extra complicated work …. So, the extra routine work which is typically very handbook is being changed by a robotic,” mentioned Romney.

“It provides us much more flexibility in our workflow,” he added.

When the robotic duo first arrived, there was plenty of pleasure, mentioned Romney, in addition to a bit little bit of apprehension from lab workers.

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“As a result of folks assume, (is) this machine going to take over my job? However in the end, they understand no, it’s going to make my life simpler,” mentioned Romney.

Tarzan and Jane every have their particular abilities.

Tarzan is nice on the “heavy lifting” of making ready specimens for the following stage of bacterial tradition, mentioned Romney.

The robotic picks up the specimen — it could possibly be both a urine tradition or wound swab — and scans the bar code to find out what must be carried out with it.

Then Jane does the finer work of making use of a exact quantity of the specimen onto the floor of the bacterial tradition plates.

The plates are positioned on a conveyor belt, labelled, then saved in an incubator, permitting the bacterial colonies to develop.

Romney mentioned it’s after incubation that the WASPLab’s synthetic intelligence comes into play, discarding unfavourable tradition plates whereas reporting the optimistic ones.

“This was once all handbook, and now it’s automated by these two robots, Tarzan and Jane. It could have taken for much longer for people to do it,” mentioned Romney.

The robots had been created and named by Italy-based lab automation producer Copan.

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The hospital mentioned in a press release that docs and laboratory workers spent months collaborating with Copan to customise the WASPLab to make sure it met the hospital’s wants. It was funded by a donor to the St. Paul’s Basis.

The system shouldn’t be infallible. Romney mentioned the robots sometimes make errors, and Tarzan has been identified to drop tubes.

“In actual life, we all know that sophisticated expertise generally goes fallacious, and we have to supervise it … and even Tarzan and Jane generally make errors, and so we’ve got to have people there to right these errors once they happen,” mentioned Romney.

One other WASPLab will probably be arrange when the brand new St. Paul’s Hospital opens its doorways in 2027, mentioned Romney.

Might robots and AI utterly exchange human workers in hospitals of the longer term?

Romney mentioned each would play a job in health-care settings however would by no means utterly exchange medical professionals.

“If I had been a affected person, I’m undecided I might have whole confidence in robots to supply my whole care,” he mentioned, admitting he “is perhaps biased.”

The overwhelming majority of the time, automated programs “work very well.” Romney mentioned.

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“However generally, it does make some errors … AI is a giant a part of the longer term in well being care, a giant a part of the longer term for hospital acute care. However it’s not the be-all and end-all.”

He predicted that AI would as an alternative free the following technology of physicians from “easier work.”

“However what’s occurring in well being care is that the extent of acuity and complexity in our sufferers goes up considerably … and I feel it makes it tougher for AI to make a definitive reply,” mentioned Romney.

“It’s not unimaginable. However it requires, I feel, some human intervention.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 25, 2024.

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