Tech-savvy people more likely to accept robot doctors

People with advanced computer skills are more likely to accept and use digital healthcare services and robot doctors, says a study by an Indian-origin researcher.

"There is increasing use of automated systems in the medical field, where intake is now often conducted through a kiosk instead of by a receptionist," said a Professor at Pennsylvania State University.

"We investigated user acceptance of these 'robot receptionists,' along with automated nurses and doctors," he added.

For the study, scientists recruited participants from the online workforce Amazon Mechanical Turk to gain a better understanding of user psychology behind the acceptance of automation in clinics. The research team gauged the participants' preconceived beliefs about and attitudes toward machines – what is called a "machine heuristic."

The team measured participants' adherence to the machine heuristic by asking them to indicate their level of agreement with statements such as, "When machines, rather than humans, complete a task, the results are more accurate."

"We found that if you're high on machine heuristic and you're high on power usage, you have the most positive attitude toward automated healthcare providers. This combination seems to make people more accepting of these technologies," said the professor. "A power user is more likely to accept a robot doctor, for example, than a non-power user."

The results were presented at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Glasgow, Scotland. According to him, the healthcare industry can benefit from increased reliance on automated systems.

"Doctors are limited by their human bandwidth, by their experience, knowledge and even state of mind from minute to minute," he said.