An user-centred AI-based assistance system to encounter pandemics in clinical environments: A concept overview

The current coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for enhanced digital technologies to provide high quality care to patients in hospitals while protecting the health and safety of the medical staff. It can also be expected that there will be a second and third wave in the corona pandemic and that preparation for future pandemics must be made. In order to close this emerging gap, we propose a concept aiming at boosting the adoption of AI and robotic related technologies to ensure sustainable, patient-centred care in hospitals. The planned assistance system will provide a continuous and safe monitoring of patients in the whole hospital environment from entrance to the ward, including data security and protection. The benefits consist in a fast detection of possible infected persons, a continuous monitoring of patients, a support by robots to reduce physical contacts during epidemics, and an automatic disinfection by robots. In addition to the technical challenges, medical, social and economic challenges for such an assistance system are discussed.