Seeing is comforting: Effects of teleoperator visibility in robot-mediated health care

Abstract

Teleoperated robots can be used to provide medical care to patients in infectious disease outbreaks, alleviating workers from being in dangerous infectious zones longer than absolutely needed. Nevertheless, patients' reactions to this technology have not been tested. We test three hypotheses related to patients' comfort and trust of the operator and robot in a simulated Ebola Treatment Unit. Our findings suggest patients trust the robot teleoperator more when they can see the teleoperator.