26 January 2026
How can robots support doctors and nurses in the demanding routines of hospital care - without undermining trust, safety or human dignity? This question lies at the core of the new research project HELIA (Helping Robot in Everyday Hospital Life). The project brings together Würzburg University Hospital (UKW) as the coordinating partner with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the FZI Research Centre for Information Technology, and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ).
HELIA explores the use of a four-legged robotic system designed to assist clinical staff with routine tasks on hospital wards. Potential applications include documenting ward rounds, recording clinical findings and accompanying patients to appointments. A central focus of the project is natural language interaction, enabling intuitive communication between healthcare professionals and the robotic system.
Jülich's contribution: ethics, law and societal acceptance
Forschungszentrum Jülich contributes its expertise through the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine - Brain and Behaviour (INM-7), with a particular focus on the ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) of deploying robotic systems in healthcare settings. The researchers are examining the conditions under which HELIA can be used to genuinely benefit patients, how patient safety and data protection can be ensured, and how assistive technologies can ease workloads for healthcare professionals without reinforcing existing inequalities.
"It is crucial that the HELIA system is used, wherever possible, for the benefit of patients and without exposing them to risk," says Professor Jan-Hendrik Heinrichs of Forschungszentrum Jülich. "At the same time, the system should help reduce the burden on healthcare professionals while maintaining a safe working environment. This makes it possible to deploy resources where they deliver the greatest medical or nursing benefit - without creating new disparities in access to healthcare."
Creating time for what matters most
While KIT and FZI focus on robotics, artificial intelligence and speech processing, HELIA is being tested under real-world conditions at Würzburg University Hospital. In the long term, the robotic assistant is intended to take over time-consuming routine tasks, allowing doctors and nurses to devote more attention to direct patient care.
HELIA is funded as part of the "Natural Language Integration of Robotics in Healthcare Facilities (NLP.bot)" programme of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFTR), with total funding of €1.78 million. Following a competitive selection process, only eight projects were approved nationwide from 54 submitted proposals.
Research with society in mind
Beyond testing new robotic technologies, HELIA addresses a fundamental societal question: how do we want to work alongside intelligent machines in healthcare in the future? Forschungszentrum Jülich is making a key contribution to answering this question by integrating technological innovation with ethical reflection and social responsibility from the outset.
