Engaging Healthcare Providers to Design a Robot for Telehealth

The widespread adoption of telehealth robots remains in the future because home healthcare robot designs do not yet meet healthcare providers’ needs. We explored the potential for a hybrid rigid-soft robot for telehealth. An interdisciplinary team (engineering, human factors, health care) designed a prototype robot with potential to perform telehealth tasks within a home environment. We conducted an exploratory evaluation with healthcare providers to assess their perceptions, ideas for use cases, and design requirements. This research provides design guidance for telehealth robotics and illustrates the potential for a hybrid rigid-soft robot to support healthcare providers to conduct in-home patient evaluations.