Investigating Social Robots in Medical Offices – A Field Study

Social robots are envisioned to support society, particularly in crucial domains such as healthcare, in which the shortage of staff is increasingly becoming problematic. Particularly smaller medical offices are faced with this problem. However little research is conducted that investigates the concrete needs of the staff of smaller medical offices and evaluates the benefit of potential solutions. In an experimental approach in cooperation with an oral surgeon, we deployed an autonomous social robot for patients’ initial contact at the front desk. We used a multi-method as well as a multi-stakeholder approach with questionnaires and interviews. The prototype was implemented based on the staff’s needs. Acceptance of the robot among employees was high, and they also saw the robot as a support for their work. The patients also rated the robot well but not as good as the staff which can be explained by its stakeholder-specific implementation. We think that there is great potential for social robots in this domain, particularly since the robot was perceived to be useful, despite the prototype being rather limited in its tasks.