Thailand plans to leverage its reputation in medical services and strengthen its position as a regional medical hub by promoting medical robotics.

Under its Thailand 4.0 vision, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Public Health and Ministry of Education set up a committee with key responsibility to promote medical and health-related innovations. Apart from the government, many public and private organizations have been working together to drive medical innovations.

Medical robots have been used and promoted in Thailand in many areas including surgery, diagnosis, rehabilitation, and services.

Thai government invests to medical robotics sector

In surgery, a hospital in Bangkok successfully performed the first robot-assisted brain surgery in Asia in 2017. Today, robot-assisted surgery has been adopted in many hospitals for different operations like spine, heart, eyes, intestinal, and gynecologic surgery.

For rehabilitation and therapy, a local company developed SensibleTAB and SensibleSTEP to help patients with arm and leg injury perform practiced movements aided by the robots. SensibleSTEP, a robot for rehabilitative gait training, is the winner of i-MEDBOT Innovation Contest held by Thailand Center of Excellence for Life Sciences (TCELS).

In terms of services, medical service robots are increasing in demand like the elderly care robot like the Dinsow and the medical dispenser robot Bumbee.

With the investment and advances into medical robotics and the strong support from several government agencies, as well as the local production, Thailand is looking towards leading the way in becoming the latest healthcare innovation hub in the region.

Source: opengovasia
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