Assistive Healthcare Robotics – Challenges in Nursing Service Innovation: Critical Review

Abstract

Healthcare robots assist older people and caregivers. Many scientists and researchers have been looking at the use of robotic technology to help not only elderly people but also their care providers. Through a review of the literature and an in-depth study of published papers, we include a timely overview of care robotics. In this study, we review what we know about the use of assistive robots in the elderly care context, their benefits and potential challenges. These humanoid resources offer a range of physical, cognitive, and social tasks in the aim of improving health outcomes. Service Science calls for understanding complex service systems, our Sociotechnical system (STS) lens applied to the use of robotics in the nursing function aims at learning the underlying trajectories of socio-technical dynamics within the nursing service system and the complexity introduced by their humanoid counterpart. This presents a significant contribution to Service Science. In essence, the research introduces the STS lens to understand the interaction between human and machine in the nursing ecosystem, while proposing learnings on a better design in practice. We focus on the current and potential future challenges of healthcare robotics as well as how such technology can help healthy aging, healthcare staff, especially nurses, and our healthcare system as a whole. We conclude that, despite the potential advantages, the adoption of care robots is still shy. Using the lens of the sociotechnical perspective and concepts of service innovation roadmaps, we pave the way for identifying factors of adoption that may influence the proliferation of care robots.

Smart Cities for People with IDD - Foundations for Digitally Inclusive Healthcare Ecosystems

“…For example, through "complementary caregiving" activities that encourage involvement and educational possibilities for a care recipient (CR) with IDD, Social Assistive Robotics (SAR) hold promise in alleviating the need for caregiver respite [32]. In other cases, the use of robots could be an agent of personal privacy and dignity for those with intellectual disabilities, who need ongoing assistance with everyday activities [33]. Recognizing the distinctions that influence each agent in terms of equity and ethical boundaries should lead to developing these so that there is empathy, trust, and support for all parties involved to keep focused on the common goals and purpose.…”