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The number of people in the world is approaching 8 billion and 3 million robots help them in industries,
[4]
factories and services. According to the IFR there are 85 and 114 robots per 10,000 employees in the
world and Europe respectively. Websites providing various current data measurements for humanity (such
as https://www.worldometers.info/pl/) may soon provide information about robots supporting people at
work and at home too.
Robots were introduced to factories when there were not enough people to produce the right number of
[5]
products. And how is it with the surgeons? Accordingly , “an insufficient client surgical workforce is a
major barrier to safe surgical care for billions of people worldwide”. Worldwide, there are an estimated
1,112,727 specialist surgeons and 550,134 anesthesiologists. Low- and lower-middle income countries,
representing 48% of the global population, comprise about 20% of this workforce. In terms of density, low-
income countries have 0.7 providers per 100,000 population, compared with 5.5 in lower-middle income
[6]
countries and 56.9 in high-income countries .
I believe that many individuals, like me, believe that it is our duty to reduce these differences in access to a
good level of medical services. Of course, the biggest role here is in education and investment but perhaps
progress in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine (that is the dissemination of the standard) will
provide a real chance to reverse this catastrophic trend of ever-growing disparity in access.
How many operations are performed in the world? Depending on the definition used and access to data,
[7]
at least 10 million different types of operations are performed each year and this number can even go up
[8]
to 300 million . Based on available data, an estimation of the global volume of surgery using a modeling
strategy suggests that “We have estimated that the global volume of major surgery in 2004 was between
[9]
187.2 and 281.2 million cases per year, which has substantial implications for public-health planning.” .
The authors’ findings suggest that surgery now occurs at a tremendous volume worldwide, in both rich and
poor settings. This unprecedented worldwide growth in surgery shows a great need for public-health efforts
to improve the monitoring, safety, and availability of surgical services, especially in view of their high risk
[9]
and expense .
It is important yet difficult to estimate the real number of operations. There are certainly about 300 million
[9]
if the authors calculate based on one operated person per 25 living people.
What about standards? How do you count and oversee it? From these examples, we can see that one of the
needs that can be met by digital monitoring and AI methods is supervision and access to current data and
to analyze them.
Let’s return to the robots. Just as robots solved the problem of mass production, perhaps they will allow
the dissemination of uniform standards in surgery. They will facilitate access to good medical services. For
now, however, while robots increase precision for some medical tasks, they are very expensive; surgeons
are helped by about 5000 robots. Every year, almost 1 million minimally-invasive operations using da
[10]
Vinci robots are performed . But these are telemanipulators and every movement of the tool and all
decisions are still made by the operator. In addition, thousands of diagnostic robots perform tasks semi-
automatically.
Robot control consists of perception, data processing and action. For robots to make a decision, it will need
to have access to information and the ability to analyze it. Having information reduces the uncertainty
(indeterminacy) of objects or relationships between objects, and allows recognition of the state of the
system. Sensors are responsible for obtaining information about the environment and the current state
(position) of the robot’s components and its system. An important element of service robot control systems
is the ability to process video information received from the robot’s environment.