Table 2 Needs and promising application scenarios for AI in nursing practice emphasized during the online workshop

Care needs assessment and risk assessment

"The fact that I continuously use a certain system that records my everyday life, that then registers when there are deviations from this everyday life. Or when I think of movement sensors in the apartment, when the system suddenly notices that I get up more often at night to go to the toilet than I used to, that the system then realizes that this could be a sign of incontinence or a disturbed day-night rhythm […]."[Management/DoN/Provider of Home Care]

Care planning in complex care situations

"That AI simply supports me in finding adequate interventions, especially for very complex care cases or very multimorbid people. There are also interactions sometimes […]”[Management/DoN/Provider of Hospital Care]

“Assessment or nursing assessment and transfer into nursing care planning. Where […] individual complex situations […] are covered. Not just pure if–then functions.” [Management/DoN/Provider of Hospital Care]

Evidence-based decision support

"Keyword evidence-based decision support […]. I want to emphasize this again because it is something very concrete that could be implemented directly. The databases are there, the preparation of the data, the knowledge access, that is missing at this point. Quick decision-making tools to really do better." [Nursing Education and Science]

"The most ideal […] would of course be an AI on site at the bedside. That I can also use exactly this knowledge on site. […] The variant I would have a voice control and interact verbally with the AI.” [Management/DoN/Provider of Hospital Care]

Medication management

“The […] medication management. How much are people taking of what, are they actually doing it, what is being taken […] that would be a nice topic for automation." [AI research and development]

Physical and cognitive activation

"Activation. Both physical and cognitive I can imagine very well. [Example Tovertafel]. It would be great to have such tools also generated at home and also everything that has to do with training at home, with solidification of skills or improvements.” [Informal Caregiver]

Route planning

“That both traffic reports, the supply wishes of the customers, the available employees and their qualifications, etc. are all taken into account and that a finished tour is proposed […]. I think this is very important to support the care managers […] and […] to free up more time for other activities. […] If you do more research in that area and develop that further, I think that can be a very useful support." [Management/DoN/Provider of Home Care]

Nurse rostering, staff mix

„How do we get service planning on the one hand and the planning of concrete nursing care with staff deployment – and not so much with the question of how many personnel are to be deployed, because there are corresponding [legal] specifications – but with the question of how this is to be distributed qualitatively and quantitatively. […] In a correlation of content, between the staff deployment, with all its facets, qualification and such things, and the concrete activities. So also, for example, such a question: Doesn't the care of Mrs. Klarenbach in a cognitively restricted scenario actually have to be allowed to last longer than, so to speak, usually?” [AI research and development]

Counselling of informal care givers and patients

"I can think of care counselling, which would also be suitable, at least initially, for AI use. […] AI could first provide support upstream to give orientation and sounding out and then guide you directly to the help that you need and that will then help you further." [Management/DoN/Provider of Home Care]

Quality of life and stressors of informal caregivers

"Also, to collect specific needs of the relatives. What are the needs of those standing at the bedside? To call up and recognize the quality of life and well-being based on certain parameters, whether it's through digitalized image processing or observation modules […] also for people with cognitive impairments.” [Informal Caregiver[

Education, mediation of knowledge and competencies (nurses, other health professionals, informal care givers)

“For example, how to qualify nursing assistants to take on more tasks at a distance, even if they don't have the expertise. Here, AI could provide support, for example, with the help of [smart glasses] that then impart knowledge, transmit what the nursing assistant sees and can also evaluate it directly and then give her a recommendation for action. If the nursing assistant looks at a wound, that the AI can then convert what it sees and say I now recommend this and that care.” [Management/DoN/Provider of Home Care]

"The concrete ideas […] I can think of are education and communication. […] Also information sharing. What is where? That's what's wrong in some cases, that people on the ground don't know who is where, who can provide what support. Education […] I could very well imagine that there are certain care topics that perhaps generate automatically, so that [caregiving relatives notice] oh there's a problem right now. […] big issues, what about even if…for example, food refusal, for example, pain conditions." [Informal Caregiver]