Posted August 24, 2018 06:21:03 "Hi my name is Pepper, and I am here on work experience." Townsville Hospital's newest recruit may not have a pulse but it has won a few hearts on the wards. Pepper is the first humanoid social robot being trialled in an Australian acute clinical setting. It is acting as a concierge but is not just on the ward for the novelty factor. Pepper has been programmed to provide patients with information about the hospital. The trial is a joint project with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Robotic Vision at QUT, James Cook University, and the Queensland Government and has Pepper placed at the hospital for five weeks. The hospital's executive director of nursing and midwifery, Judy Morton, said the trial aimed to start discussion around how the hospital can have digital interactions with their patients and visitors. "Often we find that patients feel that staff are busy and they haven't got time to ask simple questions, and this is another way for them to get some information," Ms Morton said. Patient Rodney Whiting said he was sceptical about interacting with a robot but found the experience to be fun. "If it just lightens up somebody's [hospital] experience — particularly in children's wards — then there is benefit there." Mr Whiting conceded that Pepper did have some sass. "She is not backward about coming forward. I asked her a smoking question and I got the lecture about smoking," he joked. Belinda Ward from QUT said it was exciting to see the technology interacting with people outside of a lab. As Pepper is able to track faces and turn toward voices, it gives the impression that it is engaging with people in a human way. "Humans anthropomorphise, so we look at Pepper and believe that she is understanding us and if that makes people feel good, if that makes people feel heard, that is great," Ms Ward said. But Ms Ward said the technology still needed work to recognise the needs of patients. Nursing staff will look at patient engagement with the robot then advise programmers how to tweak it. "You probably don't want robots that are in hospitals being programmed by robotics engineers," Ms Ward said. "You want the nursing staff, the caring staff, the people that work in the health service — because they are the people that understand the patient experience." James Cook University is partnering with the Townsville Hospital in the robotics research. Head of nursing and midwifery, Professor Melanie Birks, said the trial would give them an indication of how acceptable robots were in a hospital situation and how they could be most useful. "There has been a lot of talk about the future of the workforce and how robotics will feature," Professor Birks said. "We are always going to need health professionals. As much as robots might have 'personalities' they can't provide the level of caring and therapeutic engagement that nurses and other health professionals provide." Topics: health, healthcare-facilities, offbeat, robots-and-artificial-intelligence, townsville-4810
The Townsville Hospital in Australia has begun a five-week trial in which a Pepper robot, developed by SoftBank Robotics, interacts with patients, visitors and staff, to assess how useful and acceptable robots would be in a clinical situation. In the trial, patients will wear an exoskeleton that is controlled remotely from their smartphone.