IN the present highly infectious pandemic climate at hospitals – what better way is there to deliver food and dispense medication to Covid-19 patients in hospital wards – than to enlist the assistance of Makcik Kiah 19 or MCK19.
[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]MCK19 was created by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM) UKM and DF Automation and Robotics Sdn Bhd (DF), according to a news by Bernama.
The use of MCK19 will reduce exposure between healthcare frontliners and patients under investigations (PUI) who may be highly contagious and need to be in isolation.
MCK19 will reduce the dependency on PPEs as hospitals are facing a global shortage.
According to the news report, MCK19 uses Zalpha – a DF commercial robot that has the capacity to navigate autonomously when assisting doctors and nurses in delivering food or medicine to a patient’s bed.
More interestingly, it is equipped with a security feature to allow access by authorised administrators only. The MCK19 is an IoT based robot where it can be accessed via any PC, tablets or smartphones allowing users to interact with it even if they are not at the hospital premise.
“Doctors can soon provide consultations via teleconference with patients without having to go to their patient’s room,” reported Bernama, quoting UTM.
The idea to create MCK19 came from Associate Professor Dr Yeong Che Fai from UTM School of Engineering. He is also the co-founder of DF. The project commenced at the beginning of the Movement Control Order (MCO) enforcement on March 18.
The working prototype that took less than two weeks to develop was made possible with support from several parties especially the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), HCTM, UTM, DF and Ministry of Health.
According to Bernama, MCK19 is expected to be tested at HCTM and if it is found viable, DF will proceed with mass production of MCK19.
Yeong said DF which has been providing robotic solutions to industries for eight years now is confident that the robot could help with many other tasks to reduce actual human presence. Some of which include delivering and monitoring chores. pd
[/ihc-hide-content]
