PETRA: The potencial of medical robots

Artificial intelligence and robotics are increasingly becoming a part of our lives, including our medical care, transforming the way we prevent, diagnose, and treat different diseases, as well as improving patient care. Against this backdrop, Merck is collaborating with the Swedish robotics company Furhat Robotics on the PETRA (Prescreening Experience Through Robot Assessment) project, a robot that facilitates thyroid diagnosis by interacting with humans and making an assessment based on preset parameters.

With a warm and approachable personality that encourages patients to share information about their personal habits and health concerns, PETRA can currently detect problems of hypothyroidism, alcoholism or pre-diabetes as soon as the first symptoms appear. To do this, the robot asks the patient a series of questions and, according to a medically approved script and depending on the number of 'yes' and 'no' answers, will evaluate the patient's risk of developing such medical conditions. 

The benefits of PETRA are:

• Possibility of integration of an interface that assesses the medical condition based on standard parameters and a user declaration in public places. The robot is designed to integrate in public spaces such as a pharmacy, shopping centre, airport or train station and find out if the person in question has an undiagnosed illness. From there, it could suggest what to do next, such as helping the patient book a doctor's appointment or advising them on what steps they can take to improve their health.
• Automation and weighting of medical criteria that help to understand the person's condition, although they do not make a diagnosis.