Robotics and their impact in Healthcare Workforce Management

Abstract

New technologies are increasingly appearing across all sectors. In healthcare, the implementation and growth of robotics is already a reality in several hospitals and is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. Therefore, organizations have to prepare and rethink their human resources strategies and activities to cope with this new thematic. This qualitative case study focuses on understanding in what extent hospitals are or are not preparing their workforce for the implementation of robots. Through the combination of the existing literature and the interviews conducted, it was possible to identify that there is a clear distinction between the public and private sectors regarding the implementation and growth of robotics in the healthcare sector. While the private sector invests in training, reorganization of teams and creation of taskforces, the public sector does not have as a priority to rethink its human resources strategies and activities because the Public Ministry does not do or plan to do, in the short term, any kind of investment in robotics. Moreover, the fear of losing the human side with the patient allied to the fear of robots replacing human delays the implementation of robotics in hospitals. There are still some workers who are resilient to change and not very supporters of new technologies. This thesis aims to give recommendations to different stakeholders and identifies future opportunities to study the impact of robotics on the workforce.

Date of Award	3 May 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Henrique Martins (Supervisor)