UBTECH ROBOTICS CORP LTD hosted a forum on ‘The Integration of the High Technology and the Elderly-care Service Industry’ together with the launching of ‘The Global Strategy of Smart Elderly-care of UBTECH ROBOTICS CORP LTD’.
Experts and professionals in the healthcare and elderly-care service industry came together to discuss the development and implementation of a technology-driven smart elderly-care system and shared the valuable experience and insights within the domain.
UBTECH unveiled its concept for developing a smart elderly-care system with numerous sub-systems within specific elderly-care scenarios during the occasion. They also released various robotics products for the healthcare and elderly-care industries. Furthermore, UBTECH announced major strategic collaboration agreements with China Merchants Health Care, Medical Care Service Company Inc (MCS) in Japan (a joint venture company to be founded this month), and China Academy of Transportation Sciences Group.
For the elderly, UBTECH integrates intelligent robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, which is managed via the UBTECH Smart Elderly-care Cloud-based Platform. Nursing services are provided throughout the system for senior citizens who live at home or in community centers. The system is built on a cloud platform and focuses on six major scenarios: services management, daily care management, security and health monitoring, memory loss prevention, emotional support, and rehabilitation. The system’s purpose is to build a comprehensive system with high dependability and security to provide a joyful, healthy, and high-quality way of life for the aged.
Huan Tan (Co-Chief Technology Officer, UBTECH ROBOTICS CORP LTD and General Manager, UBTECH Healthcare Business Unit,), introduced how the company has been developing and integrating AI, robotics, and other high-tech approaches to improve the quality of life for our senior citizens. They use this technology in the elderly-care industry to build new services, a new ecosystem, and significantly new values for the industry. New technology has enabled new services such as active interaction and companionship, autonomous navigation for continuous and automated door-to-door care provider, continuous monitoring of personal and environmental safety, precise evaluations, intervention plans, and rehabilitation exercises for people with cognitive, psychological, and physical disabilities. The new ecosystem incorporates robots and smart devices into an elderly-care service system, allowing humans, robots, machines, devices, and IT infrastructure to collaborate on operations. These robots are considered intelligent service providers, a significant invention that has the potential to considerably improve the reliability and quality of healthcare services for the elderly. With connected senior-care services in institutions, communities, and homes, new values are generated for the elderly-care service business and end-users based on the new services and new ecosystem. The operations for the institutions and communities will be much improved, while the elderly citizens will receive more precise, friendly, and active services, resulting in higher-quality lives than ever before.
The UBTECH Healthcare Business Unit showcased five innovative and powerful service robots: Walking Assist Robot-Wassi, Containerized Delivery Robot-DR, Smart Wheelchair Robot – PathFynder, Open Shelf Delivery Robot-OSDR and Companion Robot-Welli. These robots directly address the challenges of the increasing shortage of caregivers, the fast-growing global aging populations, and the increasing demand for high-quality healthcare services, together with other hardware and software components within the smart elderly-care ecosystem. UBTECH also unveiled a cloud-based Intelligent Elderly-care Service Platform, named the ‘Super Brain’, which can coordinate services between service robots and IoT devices in the elderly-care service domain. These robots can provide personalized services to senior citizens in nursing homes, assisted living communities, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities while remaining safe.
To date, the integrated solution of UBTECH’s smart elderly-care service and product portfolio has already been deployed, delivering services on a variety of locations such as hospitals, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and retirement communities. UBTECH also established a formal relationship with China Merchants Health Care in Shenzhen, Xinkai Senior Care Facility in Shanghai, University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, and Taishan Sanatorium of Shandong Province.
UBTECH revealed 12 partners at the Ecological Community opening ceremony, including the aforementioned China Merchants Health Care, Medical Care Service Company Inc (MCS) in Japan, and China Academy of Transportation Sciences Group, among others. The partners come from aged care providers, medical facility operators, and technological companies.
The two companies will continue to work together to build smart residential facilities to provide elderly-care services that meets the needs of the aging population in the community, to offer humanistic care, and to deliver comprehensive end-to-end service.
Grace Wang, Director of the MCS Group and the General Manager of MCS China, mentioned that the partnership will enable a smarter solution to provide services to the senior citizens, in 3 key areas: nursing and technology, digital transformation, and prevention.
The elderly-care service industry contributes over 20 percent of the GDP in developed countries, e.g., the European countries and the United States, compared with only 7 percent in China, representing a huge potential of the market. The size of the market in China is expected to reach 10.29 trillion Chinese Yuan (approx. $1.5 trillion USD) by 2022. By leveraging a comprehensive integration with the elderly-care industry, the high technology-driven elderly care services will help further improve the quality of life and wellness of all families, and benefit the country’s aging population using innovative solutions.
UBTECH has more than ten years of experience and skill in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics technologies. UBTECH has been a pioneer and leader in the smart healthcare sector throughout its ongoing journey, from the exploration of creating services for seniors in 2017, to the establishment of a North American R&D center focusing on the healthcare sector in 2019, and a healthcare business unit focusing on applying solutions in various elderly-care scenarios in 2021, to the release of its global strategy for smart elderly-care in 2022. Together with industry partners, UBTECH is dedicated to the objective of revolutionizing the healthcare industry and ensuring the long-term development of the elderly-care economy through innovative technology.
