Walking into the operating room area of a hospital, one's impression might consist of rows of tightly closed heavy doors, cold and precise instruments, and medical staff rushing by with serious expressions. In a high-pressure environment that is a race against time and is critical to life safety, every minute and every second in the operating room makes people feel incredibly tense. However, behind this compact work rhythm, nurses in the operating room not only need to utilize a high degree of expertise to assist physicians with surgeries and monitor patient conditions, but they also have to face an "invisible physical marathon" every day. To alleviate the pain points of physical and mental tension as well as the heavy workload of frontline medical colleagues, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital has quietly welcomed several special new employees in recent years. They have no tears of exhaustion and do not fear heavy journeys, silently shuttling through the operating room corridors. They are the "robot teammates" of the operating room!

The scale of the operating room at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital is massive, houses a total of 28 operating rooms. Due to its long and narrow design, the longest distance is approximately 220 meters, which is equivalent to running half a lap around a track field! In such a vast space, it poses a tremendous physical test for the nurses in the operating room who are responsible for managing various medical supplies, medications, and maintaining safety.

In the past, due to changes in a patient's condition, when a certain medical consumable, special surgical instrument, or even blood products and medications were urgently needed on short notice, nurses had to fetch them immediately. The walk from the furthest operating room to the nursing station is about 150 meters one way! Imagine that each nurse in the operating room has similar item-retrieval needs about 10 to 15 times a day. More than 140 nursing colleagues in the operating room consume a significant amount of time every day traveling back and forth to retrieve items. When nurses are forced to leave briefly to fetch items, not only do they experience sore legs and physical fatigue from running back and forth, but they also bear considerable mental stress, constantly worrying about the shortage of hands in the operating room. Over the long term, this high-intensity workload has left many nursing colleagues physically and mentally exhausted.

To resolve this clinical dilemma, the operating room at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital planned the operating room "Robot Teammate" project with assistance from the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Health Taiwan Sprout Program. Now, when an operating room temporarily requires supplies such as antibiotics, blood products, or sandbags, nurses no longer need to run and sweat. Colleagues at the nursing station or supply management area simply place the items into the delivery robot and lightly tap the screen; the robot will automatically plan the optimal route, skillfully dodge pedestrians and obstacles on the path, hum music, and safely deliver the items to the door of the operating room! In the dead of night, commercial robotic vacuums take charge of routine floor cleaning across large areas like administrative zones, greatly reducing the administrative and daily chore burdens on nurses and the operating room cleaning team.

Since the robot partners joined to help, nursing colleagues have happily expressed that "the workload has been reduced" and "we no longer need to constantly run errands and can focus more on looking after patients." According to a survey, not only has the fatigue level of the nurses successfully dropped from moderate fatigue to mild fatigue, but their job satisfaction in the operating room has also increased significantly! More importantly, the workplace environment has become more considerate, which helps retain outstanding rsing talent, successfully retaining many warm operating room nursing partners.

Far Eastern Memorial Hospital’s steps to safeguard patients and the health of the medical workplace have never stopped. With the strong support, collaboration, funding, and policies of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Health Taiwan Sprout Program, we can accelerate the introduction of these smart robotic devices with less worry. In the first phase of the project, with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Sprout Program, we introduced the latest automated disinfection robots. These robots can automatically enter the operating rooms during intervals between surgeries or late at night to perform deep purification, making infection control and prevention even more seamless. This not only gives the public preparing for surgery extra peace of mind but also provides medical colleagues with a safe and healthy working environment. And this is not the end! We further plan to continue seeking support from the Ministry of Health and Welfare in the upcoming second phase of the Health Taiwan Sprout Program, turning our attention to the most burdensome link in the operating room—the transportation of surgical case carts. Every surgery requires the preparation of extremely heavy surgical instrument packs and consumables. In the subsequent second-phase implementation plan, we expect to introduce smart transport robots capable of moving case carts. It will take over the heavy labor by automatically transporting heavy instrument carts to designated operating room locations before surgery and assisting in transporting them back to the supply center after surgery. In this way, nursing personnel will no longer need to expend arm and waist strength to push and pull heavy objects, completely bidding farewell to the risks of occupational muscle injuries.

The introduction of smart robots is not intended to replace humans with cold machines; on the contrary, it is to liberate medical staff from repetitive manual labor, allowing them to return to the essence of nursing and provide warm care to patients. When robot partners are stationed with the assistance of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Sprout Program to help fetch items, sweep floors, disinfect, and even push heavy instrument carts in the future, the time and physical energy saved by nurses can be transformed into that gentle strength of holding a patient's hands before surgery, into patient explanations and comfort, and into more focused, meticulous clinical care in the operating room.

Far Eastern Memorial Hospital will continue to upgrade through technology, making smart equipment the solidest backing for medical staff, and bringing a safer, more efficient, and warmer medical experience to every citizen who comes for medical treatment.