If you're not meeting in person with your practitioner, could a robot serve as well as a human? Soon they may be answering information and triage calls. A chatbot nurse will try to learn what ails you by asking about your symptoms and tapping into data from your wearable devices and the crowdsourced health records of others like you. Should your complaint be psychological more than physical, you can seek counseling from a virtual therapist programmed to converse as a human would, offer self-help guidance, and lend a sympathetic ear.

Robots may participate in care during face-to-face encounters as well. Consider the robotic phlebotomist, equipped to ultrasonically confirm which vein is the best target, then draw blood or insert an IV. In countries short on human caregivers, caretaker robots may be employed to lift and move patients, as well as interact socially. And robots programmed as physical therapy coaches can help patients stick with their exercise regimes.