Integrating Collaborative Robots into a Complex Hospital Setting: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

To describe the use, activities, and human interactions of cobots as a delivery system for medications, supplies, and equipment within a complex and multi-level 900-bed hospital setting. Integrating collaborative robots (cobots) into existing hospital workflows as a secure delivery transportation system is an early innovation and emerging area to explore.

Guided by the Diffusion of Innovations theory, a qualitative descriptive design was used to build the foundational knowledge required to better understand and describe cobot implementation in the acute care hospital setting. The cobots were observed on all shifts, on different days of the week as they interacted with staff members, clinicians, and visitors while they traveled throughout the hospital completing deliveries. Data were analyzed among the study team members using an inductive coding approach followed by a qualitative content analysis level of interpretation.

For seven weeks from November 2022 - December 2022, 33 hours were collected from 23 individual cobot observation sessions. These observations included 89 end-to-end cobot deliveries. After analysis, four major themes emerged: 1) humanization of robots, 2) usability of robots, 3) cobots' autonomy, and 4) cobots' functionality within a dynamic hospital environment.

Implementing cobots as a semi-autonomous delivery transporter is still in the early innovation phase. The cobots used in this study required human support to function adequately in a complicated and unpredictable environment. To sustainably augment current and future workflows exclusively performed by human, the cobots will need to transition toward greater model of autonomy and less human assistance.