Many developed countries spend more than 10 percent of their GDP on healthcare. In some cases, the figure can approach 20 percent. Ageing populations and rising costs of treatment mean expenditure is likely to rise further in years to come, increasing the strain on a country’s economy and the working population who ultimately finance the services. The efficient and cost-effective operation of a hospital is indispensable for an effective and sustainable healthcare system.

Through scaling up of productivity and innovation, here are three ABB technologies which help the healthcare and life sciences sector outrun leaner and cleaner:

Robots contribute to the cure

One area that stands to benefit from automation is the routine processing and analysis of samples in a laboratory.

Launched in 2015, ABB’s iconic YuMi collaborative robot is designed for low payload collaborative applications where humans can safely work alongside the robot without the need for physical barriers. YuMi’s inherently safe design makes it the perfect fit for human-robot collaboration. Its lightweight arms with rounded geometry including the soft paddings are specifically designed to avoid injury to humans in case of accidental contact. With its protection class of IP5, the cobot can safely work in clean environments including laboratories and facilities with strict hygiene requirements. Some applications of the Yumi robot include:

Freeing lab technicians at the Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden from monotonous and exhausting tasks such as opening, scanning and transferring samples, resulting in reduced strain on wrists, improved workflows, and greater efficiency.
Being used in an automated workstation at the Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the United States, to handle samples used in the study to treat a range of diseases including Alzheimer's, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s.

Caring through comfort

Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration systems (HVACR) are vital in maintaining optimal conditions in hospitals. The use of variable-speed drives (VSD) permits significant energy savings.

In legacy systems, the motor that powers the airflow is typically run at a constant setting, with the flow being reduced to the required level through valves or baffle plates. Such solutions are extremely wasteful of energy. A VSD permits the motor to be controlled to deliver exactly the airflow required, reducing waste, electricity bills and the hospital’s energy and carbon footprint.

A key example is ABB's partnership with ThermAir, an engineering company in Arizona, USA to provide advanced HVACR solutions, ensuring the highest levels of safety and efficiency in this critical environment. The project utilized a variety of ACH580 ABB drives, each tailored to specific HVACR components.

Power supplies need healthcare too

The continuity of power supply in a hospital can be a matter of life or death, especially in such sensitive situations as operating theaters or for life-preserving equipment. Our UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems protect the continuity of the power supply against short-term outages in the external power supply using battery backups – until the outage ends or a backup supply is brought online. At the same time a UPS conditions the power, protecting the hospital’s grid against adverse incidents such as power surges and filters out disturbances that could negatively affect equipment.

As an example, ABBs UPS devices drive the operation of vital equipment in the Narva and Läänemaa Hospitals in Estonia, especially in the event of possible power outages. Medical equipment such as what is needed in the surgery room now operates without interruption thanks to the UPS technology.

ABB’s technologies are at the forefront of assuring safe and efficient healthcare.

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ABB cares for healthcare: Top three technologies

Robots contribute to the cure

Caring through comfort

Power supplies need healthcare too

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