Enhancing Care Quality and Staffing with Robot Adoption in Nursing Homes

In recent studies of Japanese nursing homes, the adoption of robots has shown to enhance care worker employment and retention, particularly among non-regular staff. Robots, categorized into mobility, transfer, and monitoring types, assist care workers with tasks like lifting, bathing, and repositioning residents. This adoption helps mitigate labor shortages by reducing worker turnover, which is a significant challenge in the elderly care sector, exacerbated by demographic shifts.

The findings indicate that robots can increase employment by approximately 6.5%, mostly by adding non-regular workers on flexible contracts. Importantly, the robots' role is to alleviate physical tasks, allowing human workers to focus on "human touch" tasks that improve care quality. Additionally, robot use has been associated with fewer pressure ulcers and less restraint use, both of which are indicators of higher care quality.

The study also highlights that robot adoption may reduce the average hours worked per caregiver, suggesting that robots supplement human effort without replacing workers entirely. In conclusion, the integration of robots in nursing homes offers a promising solution to staffing challenges while enhancing the quality of care, making them an effective tool for improving productivity and addressing worker shortages in long-term care settings.

Lee, Y. S., Iizuka, T., & Eggleston, K. (2023). Robots and labor in nursing homes (Working Paper No. 33116). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w33116