HUS Helsinki University Hospital Taps Elisa to Manage Covid-19 with Robot

Elisa and HUS Helsinki University Hospital continue to co-operate in order to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier this year HUS started to utilize the intelligent real-time situational awareness view implemented by Elisa along with aggregated location data to monitor people’s movements. Now a video robot is being piloted in corona ward to help nurses and doctors interact with patients.

The robot service is a product of the Sustainable Future Accelerator organized by Elisa and HUS and has already received positive feedback from hospital personnel.

Elisa and HUS continue working together to solve some of the most pressing sustainability challenges of the future. In spring 2020 Elisa provided HUS Helsinki University Hospital anonymous, aggregated location data to monitor people’s movements to support a deeper understanding and management of the coronavirus pandemic. Now HUS is piloting a video robot that provides nurses and doctors a safe and efficient way to interact with corona patients.

Video robot connects nurse and patient with live video. Nurse can drive the robot inside patients´ room and ask how they are doing or if they need any assistance. Additionally, robot can be used to perform night time inspection rounds in patient rooms. This reduces the risk of personnel being exposed to the virus.

Nurses and doctors control the robot with a tablet. Therefore the robot can be controlled from anywhere inside the hospital. In the future robot will be further developed to utilize 5G connectivity that provides the robot with nearly no latency at all and a great capacity for data transmission.

– Elisa is actively developing 5G and IoT services with various partners. We have already witnessed several tangible services taking shape and seen how these are helping customers in their everyday life – video robot for corona ward setting a great example. From these new services 20 have been the first one´s in the whole world or in Finland. Our mission is to create a sustainable future through digitalisation and overcoming the corona pandemic is one of the most pressing sustainability challenges right now, says Kimmo Pentikäinen, Vice President, Business Development from Elisa.

– The feedback from the personnel says that we have already spared many sets of protective gear and the robot has successfully performed nightly inspection rounds in corona ward. Robot is being tested and further developed in close co-operation with users, including nurses and doctors. This way we can make sure that the robot service meets the needs of a demanding hospital environment, tells Technology Officer Pekka Kahri from HUS.

In the summer Elisa and HUS launched Sustainable Future Accelerator, where scale-ups are developing services aiming to build a more sustainable society. New technologies, such as 5G, robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles are utilized in these solutions. The virtual accelerator has now reached the midpoint of its journey and service pilots will continue a couple more months.