Emergency departments in Germany face significant challenges in managing increasing workloads and improving patient care. Introducing robotic assistance could offer promising solutions for patient admission processes. However, to realize the potential of robotic assistance, we need to design systems that focus on patient needs.
Building on research in human-robot interaction that emphasizes a patient-centered approach, we designed a co-creation approach—a four-phase workshop—to understand patient expectations of robotic assistance. This co-creation approachis part of the RAER project, which aims to improve interactions between robotic systems and patients in emergency department waiting areas.
In this post, we share our preliminary insights from three workshops conducted with patients in August 2024, highlighting the method's suitability for exploring design concepts for robotic assistance.
Conceptualizing a Co-Creation Workshop to Explore the Design Space of Robotic Assistance in the Emergency Department
Our endeavor started with a lot of literature work, and the co-creation approach was strongly inspired by Axelsson et al. (2022). In April 2024, we were already able to do a pilot study with experts in human-robot interaction and interaction design to test and refine our co-creation approach.
In August 2024, we conducted three workshops with 14 participants between the ages of 20 and 60 in a dedicated area within the emergency department of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin.