Robot to the rescue: joins medical staff in corona ward at Helsinki Hospital

Elisa’s existing Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) network was wasting a huge amount of unused capacity but it delivers video much faster now.

Finnish operator and Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) are continuing their cooperation to help manage the pandemic.

Earlier this year HUS began using the intelligent real-time situational awareness view implemented by Elisa, along with aggregated location data to monitor people’s movements.

Now they are piloting the use of a video robot in a coronavirus ward to help nurses and doctors interact with patients.

Limiting exposure

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

To reduce the risk of staff being exposed to the virus, the video robot connects nurses and patients via live video. Staff control the robot via a tablet, driving it into patients´ rooms and to check how they are and if they need assistance. The robot can also perform night-time rounds.

The robot can be controlled from anywhere inside the hospital. In the future it will be able to use 5G connectivity with almost zero latency communications and very capacity data transmission.

Elsewhere

Elisa is developing 5G and IoT services with various partners, and out of the new services it has developed, using 5G, robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles.

Twenty have either been world firsts or the first implementations in Finland, according to the operator. The virtual accelerator has now reached the midpoint of its journey and service pilots will continue for a couple more months.