Short abstract:

With rising concerns about work conditions, an acute care hospital was rebuilt in Japan, and transfer robots were introduced to support care practitioners. This paper discusses how roboticists have been unexpectedly playing a vital role in these newly configured digital and physical care spaces.

Long abstract:

In May 2023, a newly built acute care hospital in a rural community in Japan was reopened and one of the novel features was that transfer robots were introduced to support nurses, pharmacists, clinical engineers and technologists.

The introduction of these robots was designed to improve and enhance the quality of care from the perspective of person-centered care in a sustainable manner in response to social issues such as labor shortages in healthcare, and harsh work conditions facing care professionals.

After six months since the opening of the hospital and the robot introduction, semi-structured interviews were conducted with various stakeholders including care professionals as users, and the engineers who designed, developed and managed the machines.

This presentation, as part of a larger project, reports the findings from our interviews with engineers. The questions asked include: what do they think about the choice of the transfer robot for use at the hospital among the various types of robots available? What were the biggest challenges they faced in the development, design, and maintenance of the robot, and how did they overcome them? They also provided some examples of the process that they consider to be user-centered design.

The paper discusses how work systems in an acute care setting have been transformed not by the transfer robots per se, but by engineers providing another layer of care and creating new digital and physical care infrastructure.