SBIR Phase I: Developing healthcare service robots to improve hospital workflow

SBIR 第一阶段：开发医疗服务机器人以改善医院工作流程

• 批准号: 1621651
• 负责人: Bill Donges
• 金额: $ 22.46万
• 依托单位: Diligent Droids, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1621651&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Developing; healthcare; service

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project on health care service robots is in improving the quality of care in hospital systems that are increasingly burdened by an aging population and labor shortages. This project has potential for positive societal impact by reducing the workload of medical staff whose primary responsibilities require special training and human-centered skills, such as nurses. With U.S. life expectancy on the rise, skilled nurses are becoming more in demand. Automation could ameliorate the labor shortage by allowing humans to focus on providing skilled care. In addition, the proposed project aims for our technology to be general-purpose enough to eventually transfer to other markets, such as longterm care facilities and eventually individual consumers. Robots that perform assistive tasks in homes could increase the feasibility of independent living for many older adults. The proposed project is aimed at establishing the technical and commercial feasibility of our approach. The team is working closely with a strategic partner hospital to first establish a process map and understand where service robots could have the most impact in their workflow, defining the highest impact robot tasks. The core technology proposed in this project will be around the learning algorithms for quickly and efficiently training the needed behaviors for robots to accomplish these high-impact tasks in a hospital setting. Additionally the team is in building social robots that work seamlessly in dynamic human environments. The ultimate goal is to develop a service robot that hospital staff view as a competent member of the care team. Finally it is proposed to pilot test the developed robot technology in a month-long trial, quantifying the impact that reduced workload can have on the nursing staff along a number of dimensions.

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目对医疗保健服务机器人的更广泛影响/商业潜力是提高医院系统的护理质量，这些医院系统日益背负着人口老龄化和劳动力短缺的负担。该项目有可能产生积极的社会影响，减少医务人员的工作量，他们的主要职责需要特殊培训和以人为本的技能，如护士。随着美国人的预期寿命不断延长，熟练护士的需求也越来越大。自动化可以通过让人类专注于提供熟练的护理来缓解劳动力短缺。此外，拟议的项目旨在使我们的技术具有足够的通用性，最终转移到其他市场，例如长期护理机构，并最终转移到个人消费者。在家中执行辅助任务的机器人可以增加许多老年人独立生活的可行性。拟议的项目旨在确定我们方法的技术和商业可行性。该团队正在与一家战略合作医院密切合作，首先建立流程图，并了解服务机器人在其工作流程中可能产生最大影响的地方，定义影响最大的机器人任务。该项目提出的核心技术将围绕学习算法进行，以快速有效地训练机器人在医院环境中完成这些高影响任务所需的行为。此外，该团队还致力于打造在动态人类环境中无缝工作的社交机器人。最终目标是开发一种服务机器人，医院工作人员认为它是护理团队中称职的成员。最后，建议在为期一个月的试验中对开发的机器人技术进行试点测试，从多个维度量化减少工作量对护理人员的影响。