Social Robot Support for Healthcare Professionals

Supporting Health Care Professionals With a Social Robot in an Integrated Care Pathway: A Randomized Controlled Trial

This study evaluates the effectiveness of integrated care pathway steps supported by social robots. Half of the participants will receive regular care, while for the other half a social robot dialogue will be included as part of the pathway step.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Frailty at Older Adults
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Questionnaire

Detailed Description

There is a worldwide increasing shortage of adequately trained healthcare personnel, leading to the challenge for society to prevent a future "lack of care". At the same time the number of people requiring healthcare is expanding rapidly, amongst others due to the growing percentage of older adults in the population. New means of supporting the available healthcare professionals are therefore urgently required.

Modern healthcare is often implemented through "integrated care pathways". Certain steps in these pathways involve dialogues with patients. Speaking social robots are increasingly being advertised as supportive for healthcare professionals and may handle certain structured dialogue types, such as questionnaires. Based on previous positive preclinical experiences with social robots interviewing community-dwelling older subjects, the researchers want to investigate the implementation of a social robot in an integrated care pathway in the outpatient clinic.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 80
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Netherlands
  • Gelderland
    • Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands, 6525 GC
      • Radboud University Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 70 years and older (Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Suspicion of need for quality of life support

Exclusion Criteria:

• Psychiatric Disorders

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Screening
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Other: Regular care; Participant will be received by Healthcare professional (HCP). The HCP will administer a questionnaire. The HCP will discuss the results.	Other: Questionnaire; A 40 question frailty questionnaire.
Experimental: New care; Participant will be received by Healthcare professional (HCP). The social robot will administer a questionnaire. The HCP will discuss the results.	Other: Questionnaire; A 40 question frailty questionnaire.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Consumer Quality index (CQ-index)	The CQ-index records the quality of care from a patient perspective using answers to questions like "Would you recommend this outpatient clinic to your family?", "How did you experience the communication with your caregiver?" and "Were you adequately informed?".	4 Months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Radboud University Medical Center
• Collaborators: Delft University of Technology

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Boumans R, van Meulen F, van Aalst W, Albers J, Janssen M, Peters-Kop M, Huisman-de Waal G, van de Poll A, Hindriks K, Neerincx M, Olde Rikkert M. Quality of Care Perceived by Older Patients and Caregivers in Integrated Care Pathways With Interviewing Assistance From a Social Robot: Noninferiority Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Internet Res. 2020 Sep 9;22(9):e18787. doi: 10.2196/18787.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 30, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 24, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): February 28, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 15, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 27, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): February 28, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 9, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 6, 2020
• Last Verified: February 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Frailty
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2018-5019

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No