Robot to make children feel safe in hospital

The H.C. Andersen Children’s Hospital at OUH is testing a robot with a special task. RoboTale is an interactive storytelling robot that tells stories to the children on the ward.

‘RoboTale gives children a chance to take a break from illness and treatments as it tells imaginative stories,’ says Angelina Stoyanova Wolf, an innovation consultant at OUH’s Centre for Clinical Robotics (CCR).

She explains that the robot combines advanced artificial intelligence and robotics with human interaction. Here, the children are at the centre and actively help shape the course of the stories.

Good interaction with children and young people

The department’s practice development nurses and welfare coordinator Mette Sorang Kjær are helping to integrate the principles behind ‘The Good Interaction’ into RoboTale.

The Good Interaction is a programme to ensure that all children and young people in hospital thrive and feel included. For this reason, the project has invited child psychologists and educators to contribute their knowledge to the robot.

The robot is inspired by a larger project

The RoboTale project, which runs from 5 August 2024 to 28 June 2025, aims to create a safe, stimulating and positive environment for young patients.

‘RoboTale has been developed based on the HospiBot project, where, together with a number of partners, we are helping to develop a modular service robot designed to relieve staff. The paediatric department saw an opportunity to develop a robot specifically for children,’ Angelina Stoyanova Wolf explains.

‘We want to continue developing the robot so that it can, for example, play memory games or Connect Four with the children,’ the innovation consultant concludes.