Healthcare Professionals´ Attitudes towards the Organization of Care Services and the Adoption of Welfare Robots in Norway

This paper presents how the current Norwegian care services are organized after following a new care scheme as part of a recent national strategy on Innovation in Care. The current organization of the states’ care services sets the preconditions of how Welfare Robots (WR) may be integrated within the care services. Specifically, we investigate some of the current care services’ challenges where WR may potentially help and some of the theoretical and practical implications that WR may have on home and healthcare services. Thus, we conducted qualitative empirical data collection with healthcare professionals, where we investigated their attitudes towards the current organization of the care services and the potential adoption of WR. The data was analyzed through thematic analysis. We found out that WR seem to have a well-defined role within the Norwegian care services that may strengthen the healthcare professionals' work, allowing them to focus on their core caregiving tasks while also being part of coherent patient care pathways and supporting the Public Health Management (PHM). However, WR may also increase the complexity of care services, leading to a very fragmented service while also pushing more responsibilities onto those working closely with the care receiver. We conclude that WR must be considered an integrational part of the future (state and private) care services and their corresponding infrastructure, rather than treating them in isolation.