Currently, the focus in the healthcare industry is more towards the patient than the physician. Healthcare companies are striving towards providing efficient and accurate solutions to enhance levels of patient care. This is enabled with the advancement of robotics in medicine and healthcare products. Robotic testing in healthcare products’ touchscreens plays an important role, behind the scene, in ensuring their reliability and durability.
The term touch screen (HMI) panel refers to screens that can be sensed by the touch of a finger or stylus and provides a textual or graphical view of system conditions and operations. Healthcare touch screens thus are the interface between the user/patient (input) and the display (output)
Today, in almost all healthcare products and medical applications, touch screen solutions are used like a point of care, mobile medical carts, doctor’s offices, hospitals, laboratories, clinics, nursing homes, retirement homes, assisted living centres and many other healthcare environments. The ability of doctors and nurses to react quickly can sometimes mean the difference between life and death
Some typical touch-panel sensing methods are discussed below.
Resistive film touch panels
The most widely used touch panels are based on this method and are called pressure-sensitive or analogue-resistive film touch panels.
Capacitive touch panels
Capacitive touch panels represent the second most widely used sensing method after resistive film touch panels.
Two types of touch panels use this method:
a) Surface capacitive touch panels
Surface capacitive touch panels are often used in relatively large panels
b) Projected capacitive touch panels
Projected capacitive touch panels are often used for smaller screen sizes than surface capacitive touch panels.
Surface acoustic wave (SAW) touch panels
Surface acoustic wave (SAW) touch panels were developed mainly to achieve bright touch panels with high levels of visibility.
Optical touch panels (infrared optical imaging touch panels)
These touch panels based on infrared image sensors to sense and are used among larger panels.
Electromagnetic induction touch panels
This type differs somewhat from the above touch panels since only a special-purpose stylus can be used Using a finger or a general-purpose stylus is not possible.
Advantages of touch screens
Easy to Clean
For healthcare gadgets/products incorporating touch screens keeping a clean, sterile environment is of critical importance All touch screen products are designed with an easy to clean surface and anti-microbial materials
High Tolerance to Chemicals
When treating patients, it is common to use chemicals and potent solutions. To improve efficiency, HMI systems can be operated with the touch of a finger, stylus, or latex glove.
Portable and Lightweight
One of the greatest features of touch screen systems is their portability and ease of operation. Thin, lightweight, and ergonomic with the intention of enhancing user experience. No matter the function, each system is designed with clear, universal, and easy to understand symbols for efficient use.
Improved Communication
Touch screens can drastically improve communication in medical environments. Medical professionals can communicate faster and more efficiently to ensure patients get the help they need.
Common Applications for touch screens in healthcare products are:
- Patient monitoring systems
- Kidney dialysis machines
- Hospital beds
- Infusion pumps
- Diabetes monitoring equipment
- Cardiac defibrillators
- Surgical equipment
- Staff communication devices
- Ambulance switch panel
- Industrial touch-screen monitor
The effectiveness of the health care touchscreen depends upon enabling successful use by physician, technician and patient.
Moreover, their characteristics differ greatly depending on the methods used to sense touch inputs like finger touch, glove touch, stylus touch etc.
Medical touchscreen panels and associated buttons require a wide range of testing including display visibility, precision in position sensing, rapid response to input, durability, resilience etc. Tension and compression test and leakage test are very important for touch screens.
SR-Dimenzio-MG and SR-Dimenzio Mini are lightweight SCARA robots customized for the automated testing of HMI devices like touch screens, control panels, UI, etc. It will be evident from the following healthcare applications, as to how crucial and critical is the role of testing of medical touch screens.
Healthcare Touch Screens
Provide for effective and intuitive technology. Medical Screens are important for many medical testing devices and scanning equipment and provide both workers and patients with a large volume of data. Hence doctors and healthcare professionals can focus more on patient care
Medical Grade Monitors And Screens
Medical grade monitors are found in virtually every part of a hospital or medical office:
These monitors need to meet high standards for durability and safety, as they can be subject to rough treatment and even hazardous substances and must be able to operate continuously for several months at a time.
Patient Kiosks streamline the check-in process, allowing patients to provide necessary data upfront and reducing the need for paper printouts and check-ins. reduces the need for additional staff members to handle an influx of patients.
Healthcare And Patient Kiosk
Enabling patient self-service for these functions allows staff members to focus energies and efforts more on aspects that will directly benefit the quality of patient care.
Many hospitals also use the patient kiosk interface as an educational tool, giving patients information about their departments and facilities so that they can direct themselves to the appropriate areas of the hospital.
Aside from the kiosk functionality, many hospitals offer bedside touchscreen products, which allow patients to do things like ordering their meals or pull up entertainment options while they wait or recover.
Assistive Touch Screens
Touch screens are great assets to patients undergoing rehabilitation programs who face many challenges, both physical and mental. They can adapt to different users’ capabilities, and engage a variety of senses, including sight and sound.
The medical industry has already seen the benefits of using touch screen technology to create games that help patients recover both their cognitive and physical functionality. Patients are more motivated to engage in their rehabilitation programs, preventing them from dropping out too soon. Equips patients with the skills to resume daily living activities soon after.
Touch screens are much more common in day-to-day life. Smart touch screen technology can distinguish between a touch meant for input which is accepted and an unwanted touch which is rejected.
People of all ages understand how to use a touchscreen due to its intuitive design and functionality, irrespective of age, education, and socioeconomic status. Thus touch-based screens have come here to stay and will play important roles in many other aspects of our day to day life. Most importantly,healthcare touchscreen is being accepted as a universal language for our interaction with technology
Get Automated
Applications of robotic automation are already in place in every industry. The time is “Now”! Get started right away with our customized product and service-based solutions.
Embrace the future. Contact us to save your time and money to deliver a quality product.
Sources:
Emeraldinsight
Automationdirect
Dr. DEBANIK Roy
September 13, 2018Great to visit the homepage of SASTRA ROBOTICS!! I am pleased to know the details of your activities. Perhaps we can join hand & do things better.