THE ACTIVITY OF THE ROBOT-ASSISTED SURGERY GROUP AT KU LEUVEN AS AN EXAMPLE OF SMART HEALTHCARE IN SMART CITY LEUVEN
THE ACTIVITY OF THE ROBOT-ASSISTED SURGERY GROUP AT KU LEUVEN AS AN EXAMPLE OF SMART HEALTHCARE IN SMART CITY LEUVEN

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the issue of smart healthcare in Smart City Leuven usingan example of the Robot-Assisted Surgery (RAS) group working at KU Leuven. The author setsthe main research question (MRQ) “Do surgery robotics, represented by the RAS group, contributeto smart healthcare in Smart City Leuven?” and three supportive research questions (RQs): (1) Couldwe consider surgery robotics as a part of the concepts of a smart city and smart healthcare? (2) Whatis the specific nature of Smart City Leuven and its smart healthcare? (3) What is the activity of theRAS group? Respectively, this article is divided on the following three sections: the first part setsa theoretical background explaining the concept of smart city and the idea of smart healthcare; thesecond section presents Smart City Leuven and its key institutions in the area of healthcare system;the final part concentrates on the work of RAS group and its ongoing projects FAROS, ARTERY,and GIFT-Surg. Methodology of this article is based on literature review, research of internet so-urces, and a scientific interview with the Head of RAS group – Prof. Emmanuel Vander Poorten.Added value of this research is the discussion on the relevance of surgical robotics to the conceptof smart healthcare by using the example of KU Leuven-based RAS group and Smart City Leuven.This article was written by Liliia Hrytsai, who participates as an Early-Stage Researcher in the pre-stigious international project REINITIALISE “Preserving fundamental rights in the use of digitaltechnologies for e-health services” funded from Horizon 2020 European Commission programmeunder the Grant Agreement no. 952357. The author expresses her sincere gratitude to the REINITIA-LISE coordinators for the opportunity to participate in the project; to Prof. Emmanuel Vander Po-orten for taking part in her scientific interview and sharing information about the RAS group andespecially to Prof. Helder De Schutter for supervising her scientific work during her two-month(June-July 2022) research stay in Leuven, Belgium.

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