FW-HTF-P: Safeguarding the Health of Healthcare Workers During Future Pandemics, Using Robotics and Automation

COVID-19大流行使医疗保健系统面临崩溃，并改变了医疗保健服务，迫使人们大力转向远程医疗。这种减少面对面的医疗保健访问是现在和未来医疗保健激增控制的关键策略。然而，目前的远程系统主要提供通信支持，而诊断程序、介入程序和床边护理所需的物理交互仍然主要依赖于现场护理。自动化和机器人技术的创新方法有可能在许多患者护理领域帮助和保护医护人员。目前的工作是开发新型的顺应性致动器，以实现与患者的安全物理交互，从而最大限度地减少与医疗保健提供者的物理接触。研究人员将设计具有不同程度自主性的机器人系统，使用血管通路输送系统作为测试平台。该项目开发的技术可用于减轻下一次大流行的影响，并引领未来医疗保健的变革。该项目为临床环境中的医疗保健工作者提供服务，他们通过调查机器人技术，自主系统，物理人机交互的信任以及对安全，生产力和经济的影响来照顾感染性和其他疾病的患者。拟议的顺应性机器人研究和实验应该为医疗机器人提供新技术，这些技术可以安全地与人类进行物理交互，同时保持低成本的大规模生产。建议的控制设计活动，解决目前的自主机器人控制器的不足，提供新的策略，以最大限度地提高安全性，信任和性能。最后，这项工作将来自护理，医学，经济学和心理学的利益相关者与医疗机器人，人工智能，自主性，和疾病传播，为医疗保健的可持续未来提供路线图，其中增加使用机器人和自主系统是解决方案的一部分。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed the healthcare system to the breaking point and has transformed healthcare delivery, forcing a strong shift to telemedicine. This reduction in-person healthcare visits is a key strategy for healthcare surge control now and in the future. However, current tele-systems provide mostly communication support, while the physical interactions required for diagnostic procedures, interventional procedures, and bedside care still largely rely on in-person care. Innovative approaches in automation and robotics have the potential to assist and protect healthcare workers in many of these areas of patient care. The current work develops novel compliant actuators to enable safe physical interactions with patients, thus minimizing the need for physical contact with healthcare providers. The investigators will design robotic systems with varying degrees of autonomy, using a vascular access delivery system as a testbed. The technology developed in this project can be used to mitigate the impact of the next pandemic and spearhead change in healthcare for the future. This project serves healthcare workers in clinical settings who care for patients with infectious and other diseases by investigating robotics, autonomous systems, trust of physical human-robot interaction and the impacts on safety, productivity, and economics. The proposed research and experiments on compliant robotics should yield new techniques for medical robots that are safe for physical interaction with humans, while maintaining low cost for mass production. The proposed control-design activities address shortfalls in current autonomous robot controllers by providing new strategies to maximize safety, trust, and performance. Finally, this work brings stakeholders from nursing, medicine, economics, and psychology together with experts in medical robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomy, and disease transmission to provide a roadmap for a sustainable future of healthcare in which increased use of robots and autonomous systems is part of the solution.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.