Jason Wiese
University of Utah, UT·Computer Science·Early-career
Smart home technology, voice assistants, automated lights, blinds and beds, is starting to appear in hospital patient rooms, with the hope that it will make hospitals run more smoothly, help patients recover, and make the space better for patients, visitors and staff. But existing smart home research does not answer whether this works in a hospital: it has not studied how such technology can support recovery, and it has not grappled with a room that is simultaneously someone's living space and several other people's workplace.
- Fields
Computer Science
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
human-computer interaction
smart hospital rooms
smart homes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Document how patients, visitors, and hospital employees from physicians to custodial staff currently use rehabilitation hospital rooms already equipped with smart home technology, through observations, interviews, and analysis of device log data.
- Examine how patients with physical impairments interact with smart room devices as their abilities change during rehabilitation, to understand what supports their autonomy and recovery.
- Build descriptive models of stakeholder roles, interaction types, and the value smart room technology provides, using thematic analysis of the formative observational and interview data.
- Develop and evaluate new software to improve the usefulness of smart patient rooms, including whether automation functions should be incorporated and how room technology can better facilitate patient rehabilitation.
More about the research
Hospital administrators and designers consequently have little evidence about what value the technology actually adds. This project studies smart hospital rooms in use and builds software to make them more useful.
Why it matters
Hospitals are investing in smart room technology without evidence about what it accomplishes. Findings could give administrators and designers guidance on what such systems are worth, give patients, especially those with physical impairments, rooms that are more comfortable and easier to control on their own, and give clinical and custodial staff a work environment that better fits caring for patients. It also extends understanding of smart spaces beyond the home.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jenna Gorlewicz
Saint Louis University, MO·Engineering
Build the core content platform for Inclusio, a system that takes graphics in many data formats and outputs them to web and mobile apps, braille and tactile embossers, multimodal touchpads, and refreshable tactile displays.
David Kotz
Dartmouth College, NH·Computer Science
Develop methods that let smart-home occupants discover, identify and locate Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including non-cooperative ones, and reveal the information flows those devices produce.
Daniela Rosner
University of Washington, WA·Computer Science
Study how hiring platforms, parents' decisions and smart home cameras affect in-home childcare workers' hiring, privacy and independence, through forums and directed research groups with workers, families and placement services.
The school
University of Utah: 58 labs on PI Pages, $789M a year on research, 366 research doctorates a year.
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