"AI, robotics and cognitive research to ensure care and quality" was the title of the lecture given by Professor Anna-Lisa Vollmer in the Ostwestfalen-Saal of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Bielefeld. The event, with several invited experts, focussed on the main topic: "Artificial intelligence in healthcare - opportunities and risks for regional care". The numerous guests were given an impression of how artificial intelligence is already established in many areas of healthcare and offers a wide range of potential applications, for example in diagnostic support, medical image analysis and surgical assistance. AI solutions are already widely used in hospitals and doctors' surgeries. However, the use of such systems in nursing has not yet been well established.
In her lecture, Professor Dr Anna-Lisa Vollmer presented her research into the development of an assistance robot designed to provide useful support for people in need of care as well as children and young people in their everyday lives. The development of such an AI system harbours a number of challenges. Both the technology and the human users must be taken into account in the process. Anna-Lisa Vollmer: "Ultimately, this is about individual care, which means that the person to be supported must first teach the robot what tasks it has to perform in a constructive, dialogue-based process for which we load certain program content via an interface." The research results to date are promising, but it will be some time before individually deployable robots are established in care: "This makes the possibility of using artificial intelligence all the more important for us. This enables us to customise the robot to the individual needs of the person concerned, who then experiences real relief in their everyday life," says Anna-Lisa Vollmer.
The Interactive Robotics in Medicine and Nursing working group headed by Prof Dr Anna-Lisa Vollmer is part of the OWL Faculty of Medicine at Bielefeld University. The work of the working group lies at the interface of social robotics, cognitive science and machine learning, applied to the need for assistance in medicine and care.
