User-centered Exploration of Robot Design for Hospitals in COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In order to prevent COVID-19 infection in the hospital environment, the medical staff is handling many treatments for patients non face-to-face, which reduces the efficiency of medical services. Robots may enable smooth non face-to-face interactions between medical staff and patients by providing cognitive and physical support to the medical staff. In this paper, we identified the medical staff's pain points and needs about the robots which would help them. In addition, researchers and medical staff together participated in generating the design concept of a robot needed in times of COVID-19 as design participants. We conducted qualitative interviews about robots with nurses working in a negative pressure isolation room (NPIR) where patients with COVID-19 are isolated while treatment. As a result, the needs for supporting increased workload including inventory monitoring, waste management, meal delivery, and medicine delivery as well as supporting communication in emergency including communication in patient's emergency and communication in medical staff's emergency were discovered. Based on the findings from the interview, we proposed a robot design concept that can satisfy medical staff's need in NPIR.