Implementation of Assistive Technologies and Robotics in Long-Term Care Facilities: A Three-Stage Assessment Based on Acceptance, Ethics, and Emotions.

Assistive technologies including assistive robots (AT/AR) appear to be a promising response to the increasing prevalence of older adults in need of care. An increasing number of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) try to implement AT/AR in order to create a stimulating environment for aging well and to reduce workload for professional care staff. The implementation of new technologies in an organization may lead to noticeable cultural changes in terms of social interactions and care practices associated with positive or negative emotions for the employees. This applies especially for LTCFs with high rates of vulnerable residents affected by increasing care needs and specific ethics in nursing and cultural rules within the setting. Thus, systematic consideration in leadership management of emotions and ethical aspects is essential for stakeholders involved in the implementation process. In this article, we explicitly focus on the emotions of the employees and leaders within LTCFs. We relate to direct consequences for the organizational well-being and culture, which is of course (indirectly) affecting patients and residents. While aspects of technology acceptance such as safety and usefulness are frequently discussed in academic literature, the topic of emotion-management and ethical questions during the organizational implementation process in LTCFs received little attention. Emotional culture entails affective values, ethical norms and perceptions of employees and further investigation is needed to address the importance of transformational leadership during implementation process. For this purpose, we developed a three-staged assessment tool for implementation of AT/AR in long-term care institutions. Acceptance (A), ethical acceptability (A) and emotional consequences (E) are considered as comprehensive assessment, in which emotional consequences comprise management aspects of transformational leadership (T), emotion-management (E) and organizational culture (O). Based on AAE and TEO, this paper presents an integrated framework illustrated with a illustrative example and aims to combine established approaches with ethical insights in order to unfold potentials of AT/AR in LTCSs.

"Care for the Common Home": Responses to Pope Francis's Encyclical Letter.

This article aims to build awareness of the growing global crisis in social, economic and environmental terms from different disciplinary approaches. The authors respond to the message of Pope Francis presented in his Encyclical Letter published in 2015. The article provides a short current overview of the discourse and presents three hypotheses anchored in the disciplines of Psychology, Health and Theology for a deeper discussion of Pope Francis's viewpoints on the challenges to humankind and how to address them. It thereby contributes to the discourse on health and religion with regard to the Pope's message to the world community. The article leads to an interdisciplinary conclusion and directions for future research and practice.