A vision of the patient room as an architectural-robotic ecosystem

Abstract

Healthcare is becoming more digital and technological, but healthcare environments have not yet become embedded with digital technologies to support the most productive (physical) interaction between medical patients, clinical staff and the physical artifacts that surround and envelop them. This shortcoming is an opportunity for the architecture and robotics communities to interface with each other and the everyday users of healthcare environments. Our extended lab focused ten weeks on sketching in hardware a robotic, patient-room ecosystem we call home+ with the help of clinicians at the Roger C. Peace Rehabilitation Hospital of the Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center [GHS]. This early prototyping effort represents our vision for the larger robotic patient room, and identifies opportunities for more focused work on an Assistive Robotic Table (ART).