How can virtual healthcare assistants become more acceptable to patients? In this thesis, you will explore how personification can transform automated assistance from being perceived as intrusive to engaging. By leveraging an avatar design prototype, you’ll experiment with features that enhance user acceptance and improve the experience of elderly individuals living independently.

💡Areas of Interest: Virtual Assistants, Social AI, Software Engineering

How can virtual healthcare assistants become more acceptable to patients? In this thesis, you will explore how personification can transform automated assistance from being perceived as intrusive to engaging. By leveraging an avatar design prototype, you’ll experiment with features that enhance user acceptance and improve the experience of elderly individuals living independently.

The Assignment

This master’s thesis is part of the graduation project ‘Ontzorg de zorg, zorg voor jezelf!’. This project gives the healthcare sector a digital boost through automation and data analysis, allowing caregivers to spend more time with patients while enabling patients to take control of their personal health data.

There is a growing deficit of healthcare professionals due to factors such as an aging population in the Western world. Additionally, most elderly individuals prefer to live independently for as long as possible, which reduces the efficiency of assistance. Automating some simpler home care tasks could free up time for tasks that benefit more from the human touch, thereby extending the period during which independent living remains viable.

Automating assistance, such as reminders to take medicine, can easily be perceived as annoying. Personifying the assisting system could improve patient acceptance. However, careful consideration is needed when deciding how to personify such an agent. This will be the focus of your investigation.

About Info Support

Info Support specializes in custom software, data/AI solutions, management, and training and is active in the Finance, Industry, Agriculture, Food & Retail, Mobility & Public, and Healthcare sectors. We provide solid and innovative solutions for complex and critical software issues. Our headquarters are located in Veenendaal (NL) and Mechelen (BE). At present, approximately 500 employees are employed by Info Support.

Info Support's working method is characterized by a number of core values: solidity, integrity, craftsmanship, and passion. These core values are intertwined in our work and the way we interact with each other.

To ensure that all employees are always up to date with the latest developments, Info Support has an in-house knowledge center that eagerly satisfies the hunger for more or different knowledge and skills.

B2 language proficiency in Dutch is required.