Making Healthcare More Accessible in Long Term Care Facilities through a Robotic Platform

COVID-19 has introduced significant challenges to healthcare systems and caregivers to provide quality care to older adults and adults with developmental disabilities (DD) living in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). As a result, regular doctor visits are limited, and demand for caregivers is on the rise. Utilizing a Collaborative Service Robot (CSR) technology within a LTCF can improve accessibility to healthcare by providing a medium for the residents to connect to healthcare professionals on demand and simultaneously reduce the risk of transferring infection. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a CSR that assists seniors or adults with DD and their caregivers in LTCFs. The premise of this project is to integrate a telehealth application into the CSR prototype and to design and develop user-friendly human robot interactions (HRIs) for the LTCF residents to provide a seamless and secure communication medium.

Faculty Supervisor:

Hendrik F Machiel Van der Loos

Student:

Delun Chen

Partner:

JDQ Systems Inc

Discipline:

Engineering - mechanical

Sector:

Other

University:

University of British Columbia