Amid the unpredictability and occasional chaos of emergency rooms, a robot has the potential to assist health care workers and support clinical teamwork, Cornell and Michigan State University researchers found.
The research team’s robotic crash cart prototype highlights the potential for robots to assist health care workers in bedside patient care and offers designers a framework to develop and test robots in other unconventional areas.
“When you’re trying to integrate a robot into a new environment, especially a high stakes, time-sensitive environment, you can’t go straight to a fully autonomous system,” said Angelique Taylor, assistant professor in information science at Cornell Tech and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “We first need to understand how a robot can help. What are the mechanisms in which the robot embodiment can be useful?”
Taylor is the lead author of “Towards Collaborative Crash Cart Robots that Support Clinical Teamwork,” which received a best paper honorable mention in the design category at the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in March.
The paper builds on Taylor’s ongoing research exploring robotics and team dynamics in unpredictable health care settings, like emergency and operating rooms.
Within the medical field, robotics are used in surgery and other health care operations with clear, standardized procedures. The Cornell-Michigan State team, however, set out to learn how a robot can support health care workers in fluid and sometimes chaotic bedside situations, like resuscitating a patient who has gone into cardiac arrest.
The challenges of deploying robots in such unpredictable environments are immense, said Taylor, who has been researching the use of robotics in bedside care since her days as a doctoral student. For starters, patient rooms are often too small to accommodate a stand-alone robot, and current robotics are not yet robust enough to perceive, let alone assist within, the flurry of activity amid emergency situations. Furthermore, beyond the robot’s technical abilities, there remain critical questions concerning its impact on team dynamics, Taylor said.
But the potential for robotics in medicine is huge, particularly in relieving workloads for health care workers, and the team’s research is a solid step in understanding how robotics can help, Taylor said.
The team developed a robotic version of a crash cart, which is a rolling storage cabinet stocked with medical supplies that health care workers use when making their rounds. The robot is equipped with a camera, automated drawers, and—continuing Cornell Bowers CIS researchers’ practice of “garbatrage“—a repurposed hoverboard for maneuvering around.
Through a collaborative design process, researchers worked with 10 health care workers and learned that a robot could benefit teams during bedside care by providing guidance on medical procedures, offering feedback, and tracking tasks, and by managing medications, equipment, and medical supplies.
Participants favored a robot with “shared control,” wherein health care workers maintain their autonomy regarding decision-making, while the robot serves as a kind of safeguard and monitors for any possible mistakes in procedures, researchers found.
“Sometimes, fully autonomous robots aren’t necessary,” said Taylor, who directs the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab (AIRLab) at Cornell Tech. “They can cause more harm than good.”
As with similar human-robot studies she has conducted, Taylor said participants expressed concern over job displacement. But she doesn’t foresee it happening.
“Health care workers are highly skilled,” she said. “These environments can be chaotic, and there are too many technical challenges to consider.”
Paper co-authors are Tauhid Tanjim, a doctoral student in the field of information science at Cornell, and Huajie Cao and Hee Rin Lee, both of Michigan State University.
More information: Angelique Taylor et al, Towards Collaborative Crash Cart Robots that Support Clinical Teamwork, Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (2024). DOI: 10.1145/3610977.3634967
News
Studies detail high rates of long COVID among healthcare, dental workers
Researchers have estimated approximately 8% of Americas have ever experienced long COVID, or lasting symptoms, following an acute COVID-19 infection. Now two recent international studies suggest that the percentage is much higher among healthcare workers [...]
Melting Arctic Ice May Unleash Ancient Deadly Diseases, Scientists Warn
Melting Arctic ice increases human and animal interactions, raising the risk of infectious disease spread. Researchers urge early intervention and surveillance. Climate change is opening new pathways for the spread of infectious diseases such [...]
Scientists May Have Found a Secret Weapon To Stop Pancreatic Cancer Before It Starts
Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have found that blocking the FGFR2 and EGFR genes can stop early-stage pancreatic cancer from progressing, offering a promising path toward prevention. Pancreatic cancer is expected to become [...]
Breakthrough Drug Restores Vision: Researchers Successfully Reverse Retinal Damage
Blocking the PROX1 protein allowed KAIST researchers to regenerate damaged retinas and restore vision in mice. Vision is one of the most important human senses, yet more than 300 million people around the world are at [...]
Differentiating cancerous and healthy cells through motion analysis
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have found that the motion of unlabeled cells can be used to tell whether they are cancerous or healthy. They observed malignant fibrosarcoma [...]
This Tiny Cellular Gate Could Be the Key to Curing Cancer – And Regrowing Hair
After more than five decades of mystery, scientists have finally unveiled the detailed structure and function of a long-theorized molecular machine in our mitochondria — the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier. This microscopic gatekeeper controls how [...]
Unlocking Vision’s Secrets: Researchers Reveal 3D Structure of Key Eye Protein
Researchers have uncovered the 3D structure of RBP3, a key protein in vision, revealing how it transports retinoids and fatty acids and how its dysfunction may lead to retinal diseases. Proteins play a critical [...]
5 Key Facts About Nanoplastics and How They Affect the Human Body
Nanoplastics are typically defined as plastic particles smaller than 1000 nanometers. These particles are increasingly being detected in human tissues: they can bypass biological barriers, accumulate in organs, and may influence health in ways [...]
Measles Is Back: Doctors Warn of Dangerous Surge Across the U.S.
Parents are encouraged to contact their pediatrician if their child has been exposed to measles or is showing symptoms. Pediatric infectious disease experts are emphasizing the critical importance of measles vaccination, as the highly [...]
AI at the Speed of Light: How Silicon Photonics Are Reinventing Hardware
A cutting-edge AI acceleration platform powered by light rather than electricity could revolutionize how AI is trained and deployed. Using photonic integrated circuits made from advanced III-V semiconductors, researchers have developed a system that vastly [...]
A Grain of Brain, 523 Million Synapses, Most Complicated Neuroscience Experiment Ever Attempted
A team of over 150 scientists has achieved what once seemed impossible: a complete wiring and activity map of a tiny section of a mammalian brain. This feat, part of the MICrONS Project, rivals [...]
The Secret “Radar” Bacteria Use To Outsmart Their Enemies
A chemical radar allows bacteria to sense and eliminate predators. Investigating how microorganisms communicate deepens our understanding of the complex ecological interactions that shape our environment is an area of key focus for the [...]
Psychologists explore ethical issues associated with human-AI relationships
It's becoming increasingly commonplace for people to develop intimate, long-term relationships with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. At their extreme, people have "married" their AI companions in non-legally binding ceremonies, and at least two people [...]
When You Lose Weight, Where Does It Actually Go?
Most health professionals lack a clear understanding of how body fat is lost, often subscribing to misconceptions like fat converting to energy or muscle. The truth is, fat is actually broken down into carbon [...]
How Everyday Plastics Quietly Turn Into DNA-Damaging Nanoparticles
The same unique structure that makes plastic so versatile also makes it susceptible to breaking down into harmful micro- and nanoscale particles. The world is saturated with trillions of microscopic and nanoscopic plastic particles, some smaller [...]
AI Outperforms Physicians in Real-World Urgent Care Decisions, Study Finds
The study, conducted at the virtual urgent care clinic Cedars-Sinai Connect in LA, compared recommendations given in about 500 visits of adult patients with relatively common symptoms – respiratory, urinary, eye, vaginal and dental. [...]
