The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University in Taiyuan introduced robot guides Nov 9, offering more convenience to patients.

The robot guides use speech recognition, face detection and recognition, language understanding, and sound source positioning technologies to provide services such as reception, position navigation, medical consultations and guidance, and health education.

Patients can communicate with them through voice commands or click screens on the robots to find information.

"Over 10,000 pieces of information, including location on medical departments and common diseases, are stored in the medical robot guides," said Wang Binquan, director of the hospital.

The robots will regularly update stored information to enhance services. More functions, such as registration and printing health checkup sheets and reports, will be added.

The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University received more than 1.25 million patients in 2017, treating some an average of 5,000 patients a day. The introduction of medical robot guides will alleviate the problems created by increasing numbers if patients and limited numbers of medical staff members and will improve the efficiency of outpatient services.

A ribbon cutting ceremony for robot guides takes place at the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, Nov 9. [Photo/Xinhua]

Residents use the robot for medical service at the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, Nov 9. [Photo/Xinhua]