Service robots for care facilities
Robots in care: fewer trips, more time for people
Care remains human. Suitable service robots take over clearly defined transport routes and scheduled floor cleaning, for example for laundry, consumables, meals, or cleared hallway areas.
Whether a new system works in your nursing home, retirement home, or senior residence is not primarily determined by the model itself. Crucial factors are the task, the building, the operating hours, and the people who will be working with the new process.
- No human care
- Building and process review prior to selection
- Pilot project with measurable success criteria
Concept and boundary
What "care robot" means on this page
The term is used for very different systems. Here, it refers to service robots that support operations in the care sector: with internal transport and recurring floor cleaning.
They do not provide personal care, make nursing assessments, or establish relationships with residents.
Social robots, patient lifts and medical robotics are different categories of devices and are not the subject of this page.
Fields of application
Which tasks are suitable?
A sensible approach begins with a recurring task, a clear route, or a suitable area. Personal care always remains the responsibility of the team.
Clearly define recurring routes
Depending on the transport and transfer concept, robots can, for example, move:
The goods to be transported, the container, the loading process, the unloading procedure, access authorization, and the responsible person at the start and finish must be clarified beforehand. Time-critical or particularly sensitive transports are not automatically suitable as the first application.
Treat suitable areas repeatedly
Cleaning robots are particularly suitable for hallways and connecting paths, entrance and reception areas, dining and common rooms, as well as other suitable hard floor or carpeted surfaces.
Flooring, soiling, furnishings, and work windows must all be compatible. Edges, sanitary areas, hard-to-reach places, and spontaneous soiling may still require manual work.
A cleaning robot is not automatically a disinfection method. The facility's cleaning and hygiene plan remains decisive.
Care, assessment and relationship
- Personal care, mobilization and positioning
- Lifting or transporting residents
- Administration of medication
- Observation and nursing decisions
- Emergency care
- Conversations, support and personal attention
Suitability according to environment
Which institutions would benefit from an audit?
Suitability is not determined by the number of beds. More important are recurring processes, suitable routes, and sufficient usable operating time.
Nursing and retirement home
Worth checking for recurring routes between storage, kitchen, laundry and living areas, or for larger contiguous floor areas.
Senior residence and assisted living
Possible areas of application include entrances, common areas, internal catering and recurring supply routes.
Multi-story facility or care campus
A change of floor only works if the robot, elevator, and interface are technically compatible. Doors and transitions must also be considered along the entire route.
Protected living and dementia areas
This requires particularly thorough testing. Signals, speed, encounter situations, and the reactions of the residents must be included in the pilot project.
Task before equipment
Which robotics solution is suitable for the task?
The specific model selection will only be made after reviewing the task and the building.
Site survey
What needs to be checked before selection
The check links today's process with the route, building and operation. Only then is a robot type narrowed down.
Describe locationTask and procedure
- What needs to be transported or cleaned?
- How frequently does this task occur?
- Where are the start, finish, and handover points?
- Which manual steps will remain?
- How is a successful process recognized?
Roadway and building
- narrowest point and necessary turning area
- Thresholds, ramps and floor transitions
- manual, automatic and secured doors
- Elevator and available interface
- Escape routes and excluded areas
- Storage and loading area
Operations and Technology
- designated time slots
- Model-dependent network requirements
- Electricity, and if applicable, water and drainage
- Responsibility for operation, maintenance and changes
- Fault reporting and manual backup procedure
Introduction in everyday life
Technology only works with a team.
A pilot project should not only take place in an empty building. It must simulate typical obstacles, equipment, visitors, and shift patterns.
Introduction and examination
This is how a pilotage process works
A limited task is tested under typical conditions. The current procedure remains the basis for comparison.
Define the use case
A task, route, or area and a goal are described in detail. Today's process serves as the basis for comparison.
Inspect building
The route, doors, thresholds, elevator, network, charging point and connections are recorded.
Agree on criteria
Before the start, it is determined what criteria will be used to recognize success, the need for adjustments, or cancellation.
brief the team
Time windows, handovers, responsibilities and troubleshooting procedures are explained.
Testing in real-world operation
The robot performs a limited task under typical conditions.
Evaluate together
The results will be evaluated based on the institution's criteria:
Operational safety
What happens in the event of a failure?
No critical care procedure should depend on the robot being available at all times.
Rating with location data
Realistically assess economic viability
A proper calculation requires the current effort and the full costs of the robotics solution. Missing values cannot be replaced by blanket promises.
The starting situation includes
- Number and duration of suitable routes or cleaning cycles
- actual reachable area
- Waiting times and interruptions
- Pre- and post-processing
- Today's internal or external costs
The robotics solution includes
- Device or usage model
- Furnishings and building integration
- Accessories and station
- Software, maintenance and support
- Energy and consumables
- daily care
- manual backup operation
Frequently asked questions
Answers before the deployment test
The specific feasibility depends on the task, the building, the operation, and the pilot project. These factors define the scope of the application in advance.
Will a robot replace caregivers?
No. The systems described here do not take over nursing tasks. How much work capacity is freed up for a specific task must be measured in the pilot project.
Which task is suitable as an introduction?
A frequently recurring, clearly definable and spatially plannable task, for example a material route or a continuous corridor area.
Can the robot use elevators and doors?
Only if the device, building, and interfaces are compatible and the integration has been implemented.
Can the robot operate during normal home use?
This may be possible, but it needs to be tested on the actual route. Crowded corridors and changing obstacles can slow things down.
What rules apply in dementia care settings?
Reactions are individual. Real-life encounters, team feedback, and clear rules for termination are therefore essential in a limited pilot project.
How much does a robot cost for a nursing home?
This depends on the task, equipment, integration, support, and operating model. A reliable classification will follow after the area and route have been assessed.
Next Step
Start with the task, not the model.
Describe your current transport or cleaning process. Together we will review the route, building, time window, and potential pilot criteria.