Telemedicine is likely to be the new normal for public health services soon, thanks to the development of a series of robots for the task, including those tending to coronavirus patients at hospitals.
"The arrival of 5G capabilities is well-timed, coming when efforts are being made to invent and create 5G tech for lives, starting with medical services," said Wasit Wattanasap, head of nationwide operations and the support department of Advanced Info Service (AIS), the country's top mobile operator by subscribers.
The use of 5G technology is expected to expand to benefit other sectors as well, Mr Wasit said.
AIS earlier said it had earmarked 100 million baht for efforts to combat the viral outbreak, including setting up the AIS robotics lab team to help make 5G-equipped robots to assist doctors.
Mr Wasit said AIS has delivered robots, related devices and platforms, including enterprise cloud services, to seven hospitals to assist medical professionals with coronavirus patients.
A total of 23 units are expected to be handed over to 22 hospitals by the start of next month.
"Requirement and feedback from doctors and patients have been coming to the team, which suggests they have become familiarised with this technology, particularly robotics for medical services," Mr Wasit said.
These robots can help take care of and monitor patients instead of doctors or nurses, which could reduce workload, transmission risk and physical contact, protecting medical personnel, he said.
Arakin Rakchittapoke, head of the novel engine execution team (Next) at AIS, said the robotics lab is gathering robot developers who have been making 5G robots for care since February, when the pandemic took hold in the country.
"When the virus came, the 5G network and our existing robots were integrated to help medical teams," Mr Arakin said.
He said the company expects telemedicine to be deployed further in the country, especially through distributed healthcare systems in which robots, digital platforms and wearable devices can be used as part of medical care.
According to Mr Wasit, the robotics team will develop capability to cover a broader range of medical services, including those handling sanitisation via ozone and UV light.
With face recognition technology, robots can also be deployed for other tasks, such as guiding patients to various departments at medical facilities.
Data from robots and other biometric devices can be processed automatically and any irregular conditions can be tracked immediately.
Mr Wasit said AIS plans to develop robots for other industries as well.