Key Practices for Welfare Robots provision: Assessment Framework and Participation

Abstract

As aging population grows, robots used in welfare and healthcare domain such as social robots, assistive robots and service robots (hereafter Welfare Robots, WR) has been attracted more attentions as one of the solutions to the welfare resource shortages. However, at present, WR have not necessarily implemented or embedded widely in society. Reasons for hindering WR provision to our society include the absence of clear assessment criteria and social implementation process models. While some care institutions and private homes promoted and integrated WR successfully, large part of our society have struggled to identify ways of appropriating the WR provision. Based on the investigation on seven successful organizations on evaluation and implementation practices, the research extracted key aspects for WR provision in society. The extracted three key categories with seven aspects highlights importance of standard assessment framework which includes stakeholder involvements and concepts of care recipients' autonomy. These critical aspects of WR provision contribute to better WR design, development and implementation in society under the new normal.