EURO-ASIA COMPARISON OF CARE-TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION POLICIES
Dates: (2019- present)
Funding organization/Programme: Toyota Foundation
Principal Investigator: Dr Naonori Kodate, Assoc. Prof. (Social Policy) and director of the UCD Japanese Studies Centre
Focus of the research so far?
The project is in its final year, and so far has been comparing long-term care and welfare technology policies for older people.
What countries are involved?
This research has involved four jurisdictions: Ireland, Japan, Hong Kong SAR, China and France.
Background
Assoc. Prof. Kodate was funded by the Toyota Foundation in 2019 for leading an international research project "Harmonisation towards the establishment of Person-centred, Robotics-aided Care System (HARP: RoCS)" (2019-2022).
Prior to this project, interdisciplinary research teams in Japan, Ireland and Finland conducted a questionnaire study (funded by the Pfizer International Research) in order to understand perceptions of older people in receipt of care, family care-givers and healthcare professionals in the three countries, towards assistive technologies. The purpose of this survey was to understand people's awareness of, and attitudes towards robots in order to facilitate the development of home-care robots that meet the needs of older people living at home and their family caregivers. Assoc. Prof. Kodate and Dr Sarah Donnelly carried out the Irish survey. Assoc. Prof. Kodate led coordination with the Japanese and Finnish teams.
What questions do the projects seek to answer?
- What are the hopes, promises and fears associated with the use of robots in care settings in Western Europe and East Asia?
- What are the perceptions of key stakeholders regarding the use of robots in care settings in four jurisdictions – France, Hong Kong SAR, China, Ireland and Japan?
What findings have emerged from this research?
- While all three countries have a national strategy for supporting those with dementia, policy contexts differ across the three countries. The ratios of people aged 65 years old and over are 27%, 14% and 21% in Japan, Ireland and Finland, respectively.
- As part of this national dementia strategy in Japan, the development of home care robots is highlighted as a way of supporting caregivers for people with dementia.
- In Ireland, while community organisations play a large role, e-health is still at its infancy.
- Finland has one of the highest ratio of single-person households among advanced economies, and there has been a strong policy drive for ICT solutions for home care.
- One of the commonalities across the country contexts is that there is a strong interest in developing technological solutions for global ageing.
While the results were published in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics and Health and Social Care in the Community, the limitations of the questionnaire based study became clear through this project.
What questions do we want to answer?
What are the hopes, promises and fears associated with the use of robots in care settings in Western Europe and East Asia? What are the perceptions of key stakeholders regarding the use of robots in care settings in four jurisdictions – France, Hong Kong SAR, China, Ireland and Japan? What policy factors affect social implementation of innovative and disruptive technologies? How can assistive technologies (e.g. care robots) be best implemented and integrated to ensure person-centered care delivery?
Methodology
On the HarP:RoCS project, Assoc. Prof. Kodate and his teams in four jurisdictions decided to opt for expert interviews (WP1-2). In total, 52 interviews were conducted in Ireland, Hong Kong SAR, China, Japan and France. All participants are either working in care sectors or familiar with assistive technology research and policy. The questions asked included: the stakeholders’ relationship with assistive technology, and their familiarity with robots; perceptions regarding the use of assistive technology in social care; views on long-term care policy as facilitators/barriers to social implementation of assistive technologies; future vision for independent living in old age; and the impact of COVID-19 on the future use of robotics in care. For WP1-1, a comparative analysis of public discourses around social care robots was conducted, using newspaper articles from five jurisdictions (France, Hong Kong SAR, China, Ireland, Japan and the UK) over the period of 2001 and 2020.
Findings in brief
The results highlight some sharp contrasts between East Asia and Western Europe in the way care robots are portrayed. Part of these results was presented at an international symposium “Future of Person-centred Robotics-aided Care in France, Ireland and Japan” in Tokyo (19th June 2022), and they are being written up for publications.
Further Developments of the research
The final work package (WP2) of the HarP:RoCS project is a pilot study using an air-purification robot (produced by Trinity College Dublin-based engineers) deployed in a residential home for older people in Ireland and Japan. It compares local and organisational contexts where the same robot is placed and put to use by care professionals. The pilot was carried out in Dublin between March and May, and it is currently tested in Tokyo from June 2022. In addition, Assoc. Prof. Kodate is a key member of new projects called Innovcare & “Capitalisms, Technologies, Society and Health (CTSH)” led from the Foundation France-Japon (FFJ – EHESS, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, France), with which Assoc. Prof. Kodate is affiliated. The Euro-Asian research team will hold a conference on the 13th of July in Paris (https://ctsh.hypotheses.org/news) and also present at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Conference in Amsterdam on the 9th of July 2022.
Journal Articles
Kodate N. (2022) Perspectives and challenges regarding the use of assistive technology in dementia care: Lessons from Ireland (in Japanese). Journal of the Japanese Society for Dementia Care. 21, 2, 229-242.
Obayashi K, Kodate N, Kondo H, et al. (2021) The COVID-19 pandemic and organizational resilience as unanticipated outcome of introducing socially assistive robots in nursing homes. Geriatr. Gerontol. Int. 2021;21:752–754.
Kodate N, Donnelly S, Suwa S, Tsujimura M, Kitinoja H, Hallila J, Toivonen M, Ide H, Yu W (2021) Home-care robots – Attitudes and perceptions among older people, carers and care professionals in Ireland: A questionnaire study. Health and Social Care in the Community. May 2021, 1086-1096.
Further Information
Please email Assoc. Prof. Naonori Kodate; Email: (opens in a new window)Naonori.Kodate@ucd.ie