PAGE 14 | THE CARER DIGITAL | ISSUE 63
How Robotics and AI Can Support The Shift From Reactive To Proactive Care
By Troy Dayon, President of STANLEY Healthcare (www.stanleyhealthcare.com)
In the care sector, many people are speculating about whether humanoid robots will become a fixture in the future healthcare landscape. In fact, the industry is already using robotics – although perhaps not in the way we typically picture it. Fundamentally, robotics is a category of autonomous technology that can carry out tasks without human input. This includes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, both of which are key to shifting from reactive to proactive care, and enabling carers to deliver more and better care to more people. Leveraging robotics in this way can ultimately lead to better outcomes for patients, residents, carers, and care facilities.
MAXIMISING CARERS’ TIME Human-centered care is critical – and its importance has only grown during the global pandemic, as nurses have taken center stage in treating and comforting COVID-19 patients. As such, it’s key to consider how robotics technologies can assist carers, rather than replace them. With a growing nurse shortage and a rapidly aging population with rising acuity levels, there are plenty of opportunities to leverage robotics to maximise efficiencies and support carers in prioritising their time. There are some jobs that robots will never be able to perform, particularly when it comes to caregiving. The emotional connection between nurses and patients, for example, cannot be replicated – even by the most intelligent machines. However, AI has a key role to play in taking on time-consuming tasks – such as administration, reporting, and monitoring – that distract carers from their primary duty and can eventually lead to burnout. Automation can also help with optimising workflows and removing low-value, repetitive activities that are best performed by a machine.
ADDRESSING ALARM FATIGUE Robotics is key to helping healthcare providers address a major challenge in the industry: alarm fatigue. It’s no secret that carers face a barrage of alerts that present them with a constant stream of “urgent” tasks.
Increasingly, it can be difficult to identify which of these alerts should take priority, and in some cases, it can be easy for carers to inadvertently ignore them entirely, especially when it comes to pagers or blinking devices. AI – combined with mobile alerting – can help eliminate these “reactive” alerts and instead deliver actionable insights right to the carer. This provides them with more details about the help that’s needed, ultimately allowing them to focus on those tasks that are truly urgent. Additionally, healthcare providers can detect trends or patterns in these alerts and act accordingly to improve operational efficiency, draw correlations between seemingly unrelated factors, and address the causes of problems.
IDENTIFYING HEALTH RISKS In the senior care space, robotics technology for around-the-clock monitoring and emergency alerts can proactively inform carers when a resident is at increased risk for a potential health issue. These technologies rely on “passive” motion and depth sensors, which are installed in a resident’s room to learn their behavior. Machine learning then establishes a baseline of the person’s normal routine and health condition, which is used as a benchmark to monitor if their behaviour changes. For example, are they taking longer to get out of bed, becoming unstable on their feet, or experiencing disrupted sleep? Using complex algorithms, the technology identifies when these changes could indicate a decline in the resident’s health condition, such as a bacterial or viral infection or underlying heart problem. Technology like this – which requires no maintenance from carers and doesn’t need to be worn by the resident – has been proven to reduce falls by 54%, providing alerts up to three weeks before an incident. Early detection can also double the length of stay at assisted living communities by preventing hospitalisations. And when an incident cannot be avoided, this technology can provide an accurate picture of what happened, enabling carers to provide the most appropriate medical assistance and improve response to future incidents.
IMPROVING CARE DELIVERY Using robotics technologies is invaluable in improving overall quality of care and simultaneously supporting healthcare professionals in the delivery of this care. It’s about shifting from a reactive to proactive approach to care by leveraging the key aspects of autonomous technology that are the most advanced and widely used across many fields, namely AI and machine learning. As the industry also looks for ways to address clinician burnout and staff retention, robotics technologies will be key to supporting those efforts by allowing carers to effectively prioritise their time, more efficiently manage alerts, and focus on what they do best: provide human-centered care.
Care Village Commemorates Covid-19 Residents of the state-of-the-art Belong care village in Newcastle-
Commenting on the initiative, Christine Yarwood, apartment tenant at
under-Lyme have reflected on the challenges of the Covid-19 pan-
Belong Newcastle-under-Lyme, who wrote one of the letters that were
demic and created a record of their experiences for future generations
included in the time capsules, said: “I thought it was important to share
by burying time capsules to mark the episode in history.
with people in the future the hard work and sacrifices of so many people
Placed inside the capsules were testing kits, PPE, magazine and newspaper clippings and photographs from throughout the period, as well as Belong literature communicating advice and guidance. Also included were letters written by residents, relatives and management
that went into keeping everyone safe, as well as how we coped with situations.” The inspiration for the time capsules came from the National Day of
and support teams sharing their personal struggles and advice for peo-
Reflection day in March, when people at Belong joined with others all
ple who may face similar adversity in the future.
over the country in reflecting on those who have lost their lives to Covid-
These were sealed and buried in the residents’ garden of the care village, with instructions for them to be opened in 100 years’ time.
19, as well as the individual hardships faced by many others as a result of the pandemic.
Researchers Identify Key Barriers To Underrepresented People Taking Part In Dementia Clinical Trials Research presented at the 2021 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in Colorado, shows that more must be done to tackle the barriers to recruitment and retention of participants for clinical trials from traditionally underserved communities. One study, which involved a survey of 406 people living in Wisconsin in the US, showed that Black, Latino and American Indian potential clinical trial participants are significantly more likely to volunteer if asked by a person of the same race, and are more impacted than white people by the potential disruption of work and family responsibilities and availability of transportation and childcare that taking part in a clinical trial may entail. In separate research carried out by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the US National Institutes of Health, a key was barrier identified in the exclusion criteria set for clinical trials. Commonly used Alzheimer’s clinical trial exclusion criteria, such as psychological disorders and cardiovascular disease, have the potential to disproportionately affect African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos, which may play a role in their reduced enrolment in research. This supports evidence from the Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Clinical Trial Report Translating Science into breakthroughs: the future of late-stage dementia clinical trials in the UK, which was published in May of this year and showed that there is much work to do to ensure that UK dementia clinical trials tackle racial barriers to inclusion. The NIA has today launched a new online tool, Outreach Pro, to help researchers and clinicians increase awareness and participation in clinical trials on Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, especially among traditionally underrepresented communities. Speaking about the research, David Thomas, Head of Policy at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:
“This research adds to our understanding of the barriers we must overcome to make sure that dementia clinical trials include people from all backgrounds and communities. This research focuses on the US, and further investigation to understand how these challenges may be reflected in the UK research landscape will be important for informing necessary policy changes here. “It has long been recognised as an urgent problem that people from ethnic minority groups are severely underrepresented in clinical research, which can raise questions about the safety and effectiveness of treatments across different patient populations. While age is the biggest risk factor for dementia, the condition affects people from all walks of life. “The reasons for underrepresentation in research are complex, but common themes include lack of access to healthcare services, which are often the gateway to participation in research, historical distrust amongst certain communities and the relationships between risk factors for poor health and deprivation. “This study adds to our own analysis of Alzheimer’s in the UK, which showed that problems around lack of access to transport or having to work longer/or less convenient hours with little to no holiday, can have a key impact on a person’s capacity to participate in a clinical trial that could last months or years. “This is why we urgently need a UK government Dementia Strategy that engages with communities and makes more diverse and inclusive participation in dementia research a top priority. “Everybody diagnosed with a form of dementia should have a chance to discover, get involved and participate in dementia research. Right now, only a small number of people eligible to take part in dementia clinical trials actually do so – just 2% of those diagnosed with dementia are part of the UK registry for dementia research Join Dementia Research (JDR).”