Background: The progress of robotics in the last decades and the current Covid-19 outbreak have contributed to an increasing interest in integrating telepresence robot systems into healthcare. However, it is still needed to better understand how robotic features contribute to medical practice and to the wellness of patients. Hence, we propose a scoping review to spot features of telepresence robot systems that impact the fulfillment of goals in health care for patients in intensive care units.

more »

... ethods and analysis: Our review will be guided by Arksey and O'Malley's framework and the revisions by Levac et al., and Peters et al. We will search in 18 scientific databases specialized on either medicine or digital technology, plus another 5 online sources of grey literature. We will consider documents dated between 2000 and 2021, in English and Spanish, and we will perform a quantitative analysis and a thematic synthesis of the papers included in this study.Discussion: This work will help to recognize characteristics, components and capabilities of telepresence robots that are relevant in medical practice, to guide new research and development avenues and boost cooperation between health providers and roboticists. Results will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and included in promotional activities of our universities. This study does not require ethics review, however, we will be very attentive to feedback from patients, caregivers, health providers and decision makers involved in this scoping review. OSF Registration: DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/S3FHR (Submitted on October 4, 2021)