Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions
The pandemic has highlighted the fact that healthcare systems around the world are under pressure. Demographic change is leading to an increasing shortage of care workers in most countries, and the demographic challenge is only just beginning in most societies. While robots are widely used in indust...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2023-09-01
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| Series: | Sustainable Technology and Entrepreneurship |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773032823000093 |
| _version_ | 1797683039494471680 |
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| author | Felix Höpfl Thomas Peisl Christian Greiner |
| author_facet | Felix Höpfl Thomas Peisl Christian Greiner |
| author_sort | Felix Höpfl |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The pandemic has highlighted the fact that healthcare systems around the world are under pressure. Demographic change is leading to an increasing shortage of care workers in most countries, and the demographic challenge is only just beginning in most societies. While robots are widely used in industry, robotic support in healthcare is still limited to very specialized robots in the operating theatre. The question of what type of deployment is likely to be successful in a healthcare scenario is not only a technological or economical question but also one of technology acceptance. The answer to this question supports entrepreneurial opportunities to develop sustainable healthcare solutions.In this paper, we analyze the acceptance of robots in elderly care from the perspective of patients, patient families, and geriatric care professionals. To understand the various positions and to identify the suitability of existing acceptance models, we applied stakeholder mapping to conduct qualitative interviews with 14 people with different knowledge backgrounds and levels of involvement in care situations, based on 9 videos showing different robots and application scenarios.The results confirmed that existing technology acceptance models need to be extended by factors such as robot appearance. We found that the background knowledge of the respondents influences the results of the questions about e.g. safety concerns. In addition, we found that the contribution to patients' self-determination and independence is an important factor that is not included in existing technology acceptance models. Finally, the discovery of a significant discrepancy between the self-perception and the external perception of the different stakeholders regarding the acceptance of a service robot can be explained by the stakeholder positions involved in caring for the benefit of a specific patient.These findings encourage further research, especially with the underlying assumption that technology acceptance in healthcare is not just a patient issue, but a stakeholder issue. Stakeholder mapping is a valid tool to analyze the interdependencies for the acceptance of robots. Therefore, we suggest using a tool such as stakeholder mapping to further analyze these issues. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T00:08:41Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-efa98325747f49b8a4721b985f7dce40 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2773-0328 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T00:08:41Z |
| publishDate | 2023-09-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sustainable Technology and Entrepreneurship |
| spelling | doaj.art-efa98325747f49b8a4721b985f7dce402023-09-16T05:32:06ZengElsevierSustainable Technology and Entrepreneurship2773-03282023-09-0123100045Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutionsFelix Höpfl0Thomas Peisl1Christian Greiner2Faculty of Applied Health and Social Science, Rosenheim Technical University of Applied Sciences, Hochschulstraße 1, 83024 Rosenheim, Germany; Corresponding author.Faculty of Business Administration, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Am Stadtpark 20, 81243 Munich, GermanyFaculty of Business Administration, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Am Stadtpark 20, 81243 Munich, GermanyThe pandemic has highlighted the fact that healthcare systems around the world are under pressure. Demographic change is leading to an increasing shortage of care workers in most countries, and the demographic challenge is only just beginning in most societies. While robots are widely used in industry, robotic support in healthcare is still limited to very specialized robots in the operating theatre. The question of what type of deployment is likely to be successful in a healthcare scenario is not only a technological or economical question but also one of technology acceptance. The answer to this question supports entrepreneurial opportunities to develop sustainable healthcare solutions.In this paper, we analyze the acceptance of robots in elderly care from the perspective of patients, patient families, and geriatric care professionals. To understand the various positions and to identify the suitability of existing acceptance models, we applied stakeholder mapping to conduct qualitative interviews with 14 people with different knowledge backgrounds and levels of involvement in care situations, based on 9 videos showing different robots and application scenarios.The results confirmed that existing technology acceptance models need to be extended by factors such as robot appearance. We found that the background knowledge of the respondents influences the results of the questions about e.g. safety concerns. In addition, we found that the contribution to patients' self-determination and independence is an important factor that is not included in existing technology acceptance models. Finally, the discovery of a significant discrepancy between the self-perception and the external perception of the different stakeholders regarding the acceptance of a service robot can be explained by the stakeholder positions involved in caring for the benefit of a specific patient.These findings encourage further research, especially with the underlying assumption that technology acceptance in healthcare is not just a patient issue, but a stakeholder issue. Stakeholder mapping is a valid tool to analyze the interdependencies for the acceptance of robots. Therefore, we suggest using a tool such as stakeholder mapping to further analyze these issues.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773032823000093Technology acceptanceRobot acceptanceStakeholder mappingGeriatrics |
| spellingShingle | Felix Höpfl Thomas Peisl Christian Greiner Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions Sustainable Technology and Entrepreneurship Technology acceptance Robot acceptance Stakeholder mapping Geriatrics |
| title | Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions |
| title_full | Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions |
| title_fullStr | Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions |
| title_short | Exploring stakeholder perspectives: Enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions |
| title_sort | exploring stakeholder perspectives enhancing robot acceptance for sustainable healthcare solutions |
| topic | Technology acceptance Robot acceptance Stakeholder mapping Geriatrics |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773032823000093 |
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