Understanding healthcare providers' perceptions of a personal assistant robot

Nursing Perceptions of Robotic Technology in Healthcare: A Pretest-Posttest Survey Analysis Using an Educational Video

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONSWe used a survey to evaluate the perceptions of nurses and nursing students on robotic technology for nursing care before and after reviewing an educational video that included examples of medical, care, and healthcare service robotic technology. We found that the perception of robotic technology was innately favorable and became more favorable after the video. It is beneficial for engineers to incorporate nurses' frontline knowledge into the design process from the beginning, while functional changes can be implemented since nurses comprise the largest group of healthcare professionals in hospitals and are the end users of technological devices. Educating nurses in state-of-the-art technology specific to what designers are developing can enable them to provide relevant insight. Designers and engineers can use this insight to create user-friendly, effective technology that improves not only patient care but also nurse job satisfaction.

The perspectives of older adults with mild cognitive impairment and their caregivers on the use of socially assistive robots in healthcare: exploring factors that influence attitude in a pre-implementation stage

BACKGROUND

Due to increasing age and an increasing prevalence rate of neurocognitive disorders such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and dementia, independent living may become challenging. The use of socially assistive robots (SARs) is one solution that can enable older adults with cognitive impairment to remain independent. However, at present, there is a lack of knowledge about the attitudes of older adults with MCI and their caregivers towards SARs.

METHODS

This study relies on a constructivist grounded theory approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain a deeper insight into attitudes of two different stakeholder groups; older adults with MCI and their (in)formal caregivers.

RESULTS

Forty individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with older adults with MCI (N = 30) and (in)formal caregivers (N = 10). Data revealed different perspectives on SARs in healthcare for the involved stakeholders. Two main topics could be derived: (1) perspectives on robot assistance, discussing different viewpoints on the potential value of robots as helpers, and (2) perspectives on implementation, revealing different factors that could affect implementation. Both topics may explain a positive, impartial or negative attitude towards SARs.

CONCLUSIONS

This study identified different factors that should be taken into account when implementing a SAR in the home environment of older adults. Despite the fact that the benefits of SARs are often recognized, many older participants currently seem not ready yet to commit to the use of a SAR.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONThis study explores the attitudes towards a SAR, developed to stimulate and support older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) on a physical, cognitive and social level.The results give a deeper insight into different factors contributing to a (non-) successful implementation of SARs in the home environment of older adults with MCI.

Does automation trust evolve from a leap of faith? An analysis using a reprogrammed pasteurizer simulation task

Trust is a critical factor that drives successful human-automation interaction in a myriad of modern professional environments. One seminal work on human-automation trust is Muir and Moray (1996) showing that human-machine trust evolves from faith, then dependability, and finally predictability in a simulated supervisory control task. However, our recent work failed to replicate the finding of the original study, calling for further replication efforts. Experiment 1 aimed to fully replicate Muir and Moray (1996) where participants performed a simulated pasteurizer task. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate Experiment 1 using participants who major in Engineering as used in the original study. Both experiments showed that dependability was the best initial predictor of trust, building later to predictability and faith. Two experiments consistently failed to support both the hypothesis proposed by Muir and Moray (1996), that trust develops from predictability to dependability to faith, and their original findings that trust develops initially from faith. The results of the current experiments challenge this widely cited view of how human-machine trust develops. Modern automation designers should be aware that dependability might control initial trust development for general users and incorporate dependability information into their designs.

Implementation of Assistive Technologies and Robotics in Long-Term Care Facilities: A Three-Stage Assessment Based on Acceptance, Ethics, and Emotions

Assistive technologies including assistive robots (AT/AR) appear to be a promising response to the increasing prevalence of older adults in need of care. An increasing number of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) try to implement AT/AR in order to create a stimulating environment for aging well and to reduce workload for professional care staff. The implementation of new technologies in an organization may lead to noticeable cultural changes in terms of social interactions and care practices associated with positive or negative emotions for the employees. This applies especially for LTCFs with high rates of vulnerable residents affected by increasing care needs and specific ethics in nursing and cultural rules within the setting. Thus, systematic consideration in leadership management of emotions and ethical aspects is essential for stakeholders involved in the implementation process. In this article, we explicitly focus on the emotions of the employees and leaders within LTCFs. We relate to direct consequences for the organizational well-being and culture, which is of course (indirectly) affecting patients and residents. While aspects of technology acceptance such as safety and usefulness are frequently discussed in academic literature, the topic of emotion-management and ethical questions during the organizational implementation process in LTCFs received little attention. Emotional culture entails affective values, ethical norms and perceptions of employees and further investigation is needed to address the importance of transformational leadership during implementation process. For this purpose, we developed a three-staged assessment tool for implementation of AT/AR in long-term care institutions. Acceptance (A), ethical acceptability (A) and emotional consequences (E) are considered as comprehensive assessment, in which emotional consequences comprise management aspects of transformational leadership (T), emotion-management (E) and organizational culture (O). Based on AAE and TEO, this paper presents an integrated framework illustrated with a illustrative example and aims to combine established approaches with ethical insights in order to unfold potentials of AT/AR in LTCSs.

Revisiting human-machine trust: a replication study of Muir and Moray (1996) using a simulated pasteurizer plant task

This study aimed to replicate Muir and Moray that demonstrated operators' trust in automated machines developing from faith, then dependability, and lastly predictability. Following the procedure of Muir and Moray, we asked undergraduate participants to complete a training program in a simulated pasteuriser plant and an experimental program including various errors in the pasteuriser. Results showed that the best predictor of overall trust was not faith but dependability, and that dependability consistently governed trust throughout the interaction with the pasteuriser. Thus, the obtained data patterns were inconsistent with those reported in Muir and Moray. We observed that operators in the current study used automatic control more frequently than manual control to successfully produce performance scores contrary to the operators in Muir and Moray. The results imply that dependability is a critical predictor of human-machine trust, which automation designer may focus on. More extensive future research using more modern automated technologies is necessary for understanding what factors control human-autonomy trust in modern ages. Practitioner Summary: The results suggest that dependability is a key factor that shapes human-machine trust across the time course of the trust development. This replication study suggests a new perspective for designing effective human-machine systems for untrained users who do not go through extensive training programs on automated systems.

Effects of Demographic Characteristics on Trust in Driving Automation

With the successful introduction of advanced driver assistance systems, vehicles with driving automation technologies have begun to be released onto the market. Because the role of human drivers during automated driving may be different from the role of drivers with assistance systems, it is important to determine how general users consider such new technologies. The current study has attempted to consider driver trust, which plays a critical role in forming users’ technology acceptance. In a driving simulator experiment, the demographic information of 56 drivers (50% female, 64% student, and 53% daily driver) was analyzed with respect to Lee and Moray’s three dimensions of trust: purpose, process, and performance. The statistical results revealed that female drivers were more likely to rate higher levels of trust than males, and non-student drivers exhibited higher levels of trust than student drivers. However, no driving frequency-related difference was observed. The driver ratings of each trust dimension were neutral to moderate, but purpose-related trust was lower than process- and performance-related trust. Additionally, student drivers exhibited a tendency to distrust automation compared to non-student drivers. The findings present a potential perspective of driver acceptability of current automated vehicles.