Robots equipped with multimodal interfaces in speech, conversation and other communicative elements that facilitate natural and empathetic patient interaction ‘will take on a growing role to complement both in-person and remote health and social care, making it sustainable’.
This is how it was explained by Felip Miralles, the director of the Eurecat technology centre’s Digital Health Unit, speaking at the seventh edition of the XPAtient Barcelona Congress, which will be held on 28 and 29 September and this year will focus on new technological solutions that incorporate multimodal interfaces and robotic platforms to help people with special needs, especially at home.
Specifically, during the two days of the congress, researchers, technologists, professionals and patients will delve into technological, ethical, legal and emotional aspects in the use of robotics and artificial intelligence in specialities such as physical rehabilitation or physiotherapy and cognitive, psychological or mental stimulation and treatment. The event is being organised by the Eurecat technology centre, Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic, the Agency of Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia and Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, with promotion from the XPA (Patient Experience) Barcelona practice community.
The XPAtient Barcelona Congress will also analyse the effects generated in the health and social care systems at times of crisis and the response given to these challenges, with patients, managers and professionals as the main actors.
‘The continuous and remote care required by older people in frail health, chronic patients, people with disabilities or dependencies, for example, call for digital and connected health solutions. Care robotics offer characteristics of collaboration, empathy and companionship that open up new perspectives in the patient and carer experience’, explains Miralles, who points out that, ‘for these tools to be accepted, they must guarantee ease of use and advanced features of personalisation, adaptation and intelligent support’.
According to Dr Joan Escarrabill, from the XPA Barcelona (Patient Experience) practice community and the Patient Experience team at Hospital Clínic, who has been working on patient experience evaluation since 2014, ‘to cope with the successive global crises that we’re suffering as a society, managers should collect and apply the lessons learned, which could be summed up as being honest, frugal and prepared’.
‘In this context, value-based health care is being revealed as the new model for providing health services, promoting person-centred care and the optimisation of care processes, where measuring results and patient experience will be fundamental’, emphasises Montse Moharra, the strategy director of the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS).
‘It’s time for a new care paradigm compatible with person-centred care. Care centred on relationships (with patients, professionals, the community and professionals with themselves) reflects the importance of the interactions between people, and they form the basis of any therapeutic care activity’, adds Gloria Gálvez, the head of Public Care at Vall d’Hebron General Hospital.
