Use of care robots in welfare services: New models for effective orientation
Briefly on ORIENT
ORIENT is an international research project that focuses on orientation to care robot use in welfare services for older people. The use of care robots is still in its early steps. Orientation is defined as introduction to technology use and learning of different skills for effective use in the spirit of co-creation. Innovative methods and models will be developed for orientation to robot use. Needs of older customers and their relatives are a priority, but orientation is also needed at many other levels.
ORIENT investigates how robots should be introduced; how to plan their use; what kind of support and information the various stakeholders need (older customers, relatives, caregivers, service organizations and other stakeholders) – and how these can be taken care of. ORIENT thus aims at smoothening the co-creation of care robot technology and service innovations by identifying and characterizing best practices for orientation. The two-year project started on 1 April 2018 and ended 31 March 2020.
Consortium partners and funders
Members of the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT (Lahti, Finland) team are (from the left) Senior Researcher Lea Hennala, PhD; Senior Researcher Satu Pekkarinen, PhD; Postdoctoral Researcher Outi Tuisku, PhD and Professor (Service Innovations) Helinä Melkas, D.Sc. (Tech.).
LUT University team brings into the ORIENT project expertise in, for example, socio-technical transition, user-driven innovation, service innovation, use of wellbeing technologies and human-computer interaction.
LUT University’s role in the project is related especially to orientation at the meso-level (e.g. for care organisations, municipalities, technology companies, service providers) as well as project management and coordination, and stakeholder engagement and interaction.
Members of the Mälardalen University (Sweden) team are (from the left) Senior Lecturer Rose-Marie Johansson-Pajala, RN and PhD, and Associate Professor (Care Sciences) Christine Gustafsson, RNT and PhD.
The Mälardalen University team brings into the ORIENT project expertise in elderly care, eHomecare, dementia care and caring sciences. Additionally, our regional and national networks give the ORIENT project access to important stakeholders in Swedish municipal and county councils working with welfare technology (care robots).
The Mälardalen University’s role in the project is related especially to orientation at the micro-level (e.g. older people, their relatives, professional caregivers and care managers) and stakeholder engagement and interaction.
Members of the Paderborn University (Germany) team are (from the left) Professor (Organizational Behavior) Kirsten Thommes and PhD candidate Julia Amelie Hoppe.
The Paderborn team brings into the ORIENT project expertise in teamwork, human-machine interaction and its influence on employees at work as well as expertise in economic experiments. The team focuses especially on the macro-level (e.g. research agencies, politicians and the general public opinion).
Funders
JPI MYBL is supported by J-Age II. J-Age II is funded by Horizon2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, under Grant Agreement nr 643850.
Contact information
LUT University
Prof. Helinä Melkas
Consortium leader
helina.melkas(at)lut.fi
Prof. Dr. Kirsten Thommes
kirsten.thommes(at)uni-paderborn.de
Publications and links
Publications
Guides and animations on care robot orientation
Guides:
Animations:
The English version:
The Finnish version:
The Swedish version:
The German version:
Articles
Hoppe, J.A, Melkas, H., Pekkarinen, S., Tuisku, O., Hennala, L., Johansson-Pajala, R.-M., Gustafsson, C. & Thommes, C.(2022).Perception of Society’s Trust in Care Robots by Public Opinion Leaders.International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction,DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2022.2081283
Tuisku, O., Johansson-Pajala R-M., Hoppe J.A., Pekkarinen, S., Hennala, L., Thommes, K., Gustafsson C., & Melkas, H.(2022).Assistant nurses and orientation to care robot use in three European countries.Behaviour & Information Technology. DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2022.2042736
Pekkarinen, S., Hennala, L., Tuisku, O., Gustafsson, C., Johansson-Pajala, R-M., Thommes, K., Hoppe, J.A., Melkas H. (2020). Embedding care robots into society and practice: Socio-technical considerations. Futures 122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102593
Hoppe, J.A., Johansson-Pajala, R.-M., Gustafsson, C., Melkas, H., Tuisku, O., Pekkarinen, S., Hennala, L., and Thommes, K. (2020). Assistive robots in care: Expectations and perceptions of older people. In: J. Haltaufderheide, J. Hovemann, J. Vollmann (Eds.): Aging between participation and simulation – Ethical dimensions of socially assistive technologies in elderly care, De Gruyter, 139-156. DOI: 10.1515/9783110677485
Hoppe, J.A., Thommes, K., Johansson-Pajala, R.-M., Gustafsson, C., Melkas, H., Tuisku, O., Pekkarinen, S., and Hennala, L. (2020). Technologieorientierung zu Assistenzrobotik – Welche Akzeptanz besteht bei der Einführung von Assistenzrobotik für die Pflege älterer Menschen? To appear in Industrie 4.0 Management.
Johansson-Pajala, R.-M., Thommes, K., Hoppe, J.A., Tuisku, O., Hennala, L., Pekkarinen, S., Melkas, H., and Gustafsson, C. (2020). Care robot orientation: What, who and how? Potential users’ perceptions. International Journal of Social Robotics, DOI: 10.1007/s12369-020-00619-y
Johansson-Pajala, R.-M., Thommes, K., Hoppe, J.A., Tuisku, O., Hennala, L., Pekkarinen, S., Melkas, H., and Gustafsson, C. (2019). Improved knowledge changes the mindset: Older adults’ perceptions of care robots. In: Zhou J., Salvendy G. (Eds.) Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Design for the Elderly and Technology Acceptance. HCII 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 11592, Springer, Cham, 212-227. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-22012-9_16
