Service Design of Rehabilitative Exoskeleton for Sustainable Value Creation: A Case Study of Stroke Rehabilitation in China

Abstract

Stroke is characterized by high morbidity and high disability rate. Physical rehabilitation can effectively alleviate functional disability of stroke patients, and thus reduce potential nursing costs and save social resources. Given the prominent conflicts between limited resources provision-especially the qualified rehabilitative personnel-and the huge demands of rehabilitation, China is now actively encouraging R&D as well as popularization and application of rehabilitation robots. Aside from the design of rehabilitative exoskeleton itself, which is the focus of most studies in this era, the service design is also critical if rehabilitative exoskeletons are to realize the declared social-economic benefits. Service design may provide solutions to wider and fairer access to exoskeleton, better affordability and satisfaction of exoskeleton-based treatments, while creates monetary or non-monetary benefits for manufacturers, medical facilitates and other possible stakeholders. This study is focused on rehabilitative exoskeleton value creation. The service design of rehabilitative exoskeleton for stroke patients, which is considered the most promising application era of exoskeleton technology in China, are exploited based on the national conditions. First, sustainable value was conceptualized based on the understanding of value from the sustainable view point that includes economic, social and environmental perspectives. Then, the application scenarios of stroke patients’ exoskeleton-based rehabilitation were developed based on China’s multi-level rehabilitation service delivery system. In accordance to a modular product architecture, the service design of rehabilitative exoskeleton driven by sustainable value requirements with life cycle considerations was presented. The proposed sustainable value-driven service design may provide insights to rehabilitative exoskeleton developers and manufacturers in servitization of the emerging technology.