The Apartment 1303 lab is a high-fidelity simulated environment for clinician students at Western University (London, Canada). In this environment, students can interact with a range of social robots, intelligent assistive technologies, and other home automation technologies. Using standardized patients (ie, actors) to play various members of a family unit, we plan to prototype how different forms of social robotics and other intelligent assistive technologies can be used to support or extend a range of human tasks of daily living, including (but not limited to): (1) assist older adults to age in place; and, (2) support domestic interactions between humans (ie, parents, children, extended family) and other technological actors (ie, other robots, smart technology) in the environment. Using a range of mixed-methods research approaches, researchers and graduate students at Western University (Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing) are exploring how to best simulation what future domestic and healthcare environments might look like in 10 to 20 years, when robotic and artificially intelligent technologies have become commonplace and fully integrated into human activities of daily living.

Research and development in this lab has been supported by elements arising from SSHRC (Knowledge Synthesis Grant 2017-2018); eCampusOntario (Digital Inclusion Grant); SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2018-2020) funding.

Related Press and Publications

How to build better nurses, through smarter tech (Western News - January 11, 2018) - http://news.westernu.ca/2018/01/build-better-nurses-smarter-tech/

Nurses of the future must embrace high-tech (National Post - November 21, 2017) - http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/nurses-of-the-future-must-embrace-high-tech

Artificial intelligence, automation and the future of nursing (Canadian Nurse, May/June 2017) - https://www.canadian-nurse.com/articles/issues/2017/may-june-2017/artificial-intelligence-automation-and-the-future-of-nursing

Booth, R. (2016). Informatics and Nursing in a Post-Nursing Informatics World: Future Directions for Nurses in an Automated, Artificially-Intelligent, Social-Networked Healthcare Environment. Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership, 28(4), 61–69. https://doi.org/10.12927/cjnl.2016.24563

McMurray, J.,* Strudwick, G., Forchuk, C., Morse, A., Lachance, J., Baskaran, A., … Booth, R.* (2017). The importance of trust in the adoption and use of intelligent assistive technology by older adults to support aging in place: Scoping review protocol. JMIR Research Protocols, 6(11), e218. https://doi.org/10.2196/resprot.8772

Booth, R., McMurray, J.,* Strudwick, G., Forchuk, C., Morse, A., Lachance, J., Baskaran, A., Allison, L., & Shah, S. (2017). The importance of trust in relation to older adults and their adoption and use of intelligent assistive technology to support aging in place. SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant - Global Landscape (2017 - 2018)