ATU667 – VGo Telepresence Robot with Debbie Theobald

Hi, this is Debbie Theobald, and I’m the CEO of Vecna Healthcare, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs.

I’m your host, Josh Anderson, with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis Indiana. Welcome to episode 667 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on March 8th 2024.

On today’s show we are super excited to welcome Debbie Theobald as she introduces us to VGo, a super cool new telepresence robot. We’ve also got some stories about a partnership between Envision and BlindShell, and about machines trying to make voting a little more accessible for all individuals.

Please don’t forget if you ever would like to reach us, you can shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or leave us a message at 317 721 7124. We always love hearing from you. Some of our best ideas for guests always come from our listeners as well. So please do reach out. But for now, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Listeners, as you may know, one of the things we do here around the INDATA project is provide full day trainings throughout the year, and we’re very excited that our first full day training of 2024 will be coming up later this month. On Thursday, March 21st, we will present Assistive Technology and Aging. This training is available both in person and online, but we are limited on the number of participants. So if you’re interested in joining us, please do sign up soon. We’ll put a link down in the show notes where you can go and find out how to sign up. And again, that is available both in person and online. But both of those options are limited on how many participants we can have. So do make sure if you’re interested to sign up as soon as possible.

During this training, we will have members of different organizations and places come in to present on just some of the effects of aging, the things to look for, as well as adaptive driving, home modifications, and of course assistive technology to help with aging, with aging in place, with internet of things, with staying socially connected and many other needs.

CEUs are available for this training, both in person and online. And of course as all of our trainings, it is completely free. So if you want to learn more about assistive technology and aging, if you’d like to attend one of our trainings or if you would like to come watch what will be my first time running the show on one of these full day trainings, just to see what happens or what might come up, please do sign up for our full day training on Thursday, March 21st, covering assistive technology and aging and a lot of other really cool things. Again, we’ll put the link down in the show notes, but you can always find it at eastersealstech.com and look for our full day trainings tab. We hope to see you there either in person or virtually on the 21st.

Folks, our first story today comes to us from AT Today, it’s by Sarah Sarsby, and it’s titled ‘assistive app now available on phone, designed specifically for blind and visually impaired people’. So this story does really one of my very favorite things, which is combine two different assistive technology companies, providers that have been on this show into one.

So this story talks about the BlindShell phone, which if you want to learn more about the BlindShell phone, well, I guess listen on, but also you can go back to a few shows where we have had them on. But it’s talking about the Envision app being available on the BlindShell classic two phone. So just take a little bit of time, the BlindShell classic two phone does have a screen on it and everything, but it actually has tactile buttons. The whole phone itself is really made to be used by individuals who may be blind or visually impaired.

And due to that, some of the apps on there and some of the features are really made specifically for individuals who may be blind or visually impaired and still want to use a phone, but maybe don’t want all the cumbersomeness of an iPhone, an Android phone or anything like that.

But now, if you do have this device, you can put the Envision app on there. It says here in the story that the free Envision app uses a person’s smartphone camera to speak out written information, describe surroundings and objects, and tell the individual who is nearby.

We’ve had the folks from Envision on here as well talking about their classes as well as their app, their artificial intelligence, and all the really cool things that they’re building in in order to help folks that are blind or visually impaired. So it really makes sense to be able to access this very, very useful tool on the BlindShell classic two phone.

Reading from the story here, it also says the BlindShell classic two phone boasts simple and useful functions such as a tactile keypad, voice control, NFC object tagging, and access to apps on the blindness catalog.

So I had to work this story in here because we’ve had representatives of both of these great assistive technology makers here on the show previously. And I love that they’re teaming up and just making sure that, again, the tools that can really and truly assist someone are available on the devices that they actually use. So I’ll put a link to this story over in the show notes that you can check it out and learn a little bit more. But I’m also going to put another link on here, instead of doing a separate story.

Another thing with BlindShell is that, as some of you may know, there was a program going where individuals could get free monthly service if they were blind or visually impaired. I must admit, I don’t remember all the particulars of that actual program. But I believe it was funded by the government, some kind of program in there to assist. And it recently went away. It ended up not being continued.

So the folks over at BlindShell actually took this upon themselves to continue to do it. So if you are a BlindShell user, new or previous, you can actually sign up for free monthly wireless if you’re blind or visually impaired. Now, just to give you some more information so that I don’t quote this wrong or tell anything that’s completely incorrect, I will put a link to BlindShellusa.com/promo in the show notes so that you can go and check out more information on this program yourself.

But I do know the folks from BlindShell have reached out. I’ve been able to talk to them and they’ve talked about this great program, but it looks like it is live and is coming through. So I do want to make sure that folks can find it.

And it does say here, with BlindShell Mobile, qualified individuals can now receive a complimentary package that includes unlimited talk and text, a SIM card for easy activation and a generous data allowance, all at no cost. So very cool. Again, I’ll put a link to this along with a link to that story so that you can go check out, find out more information about this whenever you get a chance.

Listeners, it is March, and here in the United States primaries are in full swing. Super Tuesday was this last week, as folks go out and decide who will be on the ballot this November, we’ve had folks on here before talking about accessible voting, and I know a lot of states maybe changing some laws around voting, maybe changing that to what kind of idea you have to have, where you can vote, how you can vote, how you can vote by mail and some other things. And as I’ve said many times, we don’t touch many of those things when we don’t have to. We try to stay out of politics and everything else. But actually having accessible voting is extremely important.

So I found a story from over at ABC7 on mysuncoast.com, and it’s titled, ‘technology allows disabled voters to cast ballots independently’. It’s written by Jim DeLau. And the story discusses express voting machines. It says that these can be used by Florida voters and they have a large touchscreen and a keypad with Braille labels, and some other aids for those with other impairments.

So in the past, depending on your disability and your need, a lot of times you would have to either vote by mail from home, and even then you may have to have someone else help you fill it out. So I mean, if I tell them I want to vote for candidate A and whomever I’m having fill out the paperwork or press the button or do whatever for me really likes candidate B, what’s to stop them from hitting candidate B and just not telling me? Not that all people out there are jerks, but hey, some folks are.

But this actually gives an option for folks with disabilities to be able to vote in person. So just reading from the story here it says, the machines called ExpressVote can be used by people with nearly any disability. It has a quote from Ron Turner, the supervisor of elections for Sarasota County, where he said, “We certainly try to provide every tool and every assistance, as much or as little assistance as someone would like. We want to honor the voter’s independence and be able to cast their ballot independently and securely.”

So just a couple of the features on here. As I said, it says it has a large touchscreen that can actually adjust the size of the type and the print on there. Headphones so that you can hear the different things that might be on there. And the keypad has Braille labels for voters with vision impairments. Says it can also be controlled with a sip and puff device for voters who do not have use of their hands.

It also says here that all early voting sites has at least one of these ExpressVote devices. And poll workers are trained on how to actually use them, so that they can help individuals be able to use them completely independently. It also says that like other voting machines it does not count or store votes. It marks a ballot which is printed and then tabulated by poll workers like any other paper ballot with scanners at every single precinct.

So very cool, super accessible voting machines. And I love that it didn’t just think about one disability, but it looks like they’re looking at a whole lot of them. So I’ll be really excited to see how these worked out and if they really opened up access to voting to a much bigger swath of the population. I know for me, I mean, I enjoy voting in person, I don’t know, it’s the waiting in line, all the signs outside, all those different things. But I love that they’re making machines that individuals can use really regardless of any disability and really allowing folks access to the vote. So I’ll put a link to this story over in the show notes so that you can go and check it out for yourself.

Listeners, today we are excited to welcome to the show, Debbie Theobald from Vecna Healthcare. She’s here to introduce us to VGo and how we can assist people with being there when they really can’t be there in person. And we’re looking very forward to hearing and learning all about it. Debbie, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I’m excited to get into talking about the technology. But before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Sure. Name is Debbie Theobald, and I grew up in California, currently living on the East Coast, on the other coast, so I’ve lived both sides. Went to school at MIT to become an aerospace engineer, and then got sucked into healthcare of all things. And I’ve been living here in healthcare world for about 20 years, about five to seven years ago, started working with telepresence robots, and seeing how they could be more useful to the world and that technology. And now living the life trying to push those out into various circumstances.

Awesome, awesome. Well, that leads me right into the reason we got you on the show. So let’s introduce the listeners to VGo. Tell us who is VGo or what is VGo? I don’t know how to frame that correctly. But anyway, who or what is VGo?

I love that you say that because so many of our partners personify their robots, and so it’s hard to tell, is it a who or a what. But it is a telepresence robot, and this is a mobile robot that can be pretty much remote controlled or what we call tele-operated from anywhere in the world. So we put these robots in schools, hospitals, attractions, and then we allow either personal use or subscribers to log into those robots and drive them around, talk with people, see what’s going on, and participate in whatever’s happening in that location.

Nice. And you said I can control it from anywhere in the world. How do I control it, is that from a device, a computer, a tablet, how does that work?

So all of our telepresence activities have three things in common, you can see, hear and move. And so we currently have the VGo robot, which is one of the devices that you can use to port those senses over to the remote user. So when I’m logging into my computer, it’s almost like a Zoom call, it’ll pop up on the screen, I’ll be able to see and hear, it automatically answers, so there doesn’t have to be anyone on the other side to accept the call. So basically the robot comes to life, I come up on the screen, and then I can use whether I’m using an iPad, I can drag my fingers along the screen or along the touchpad to move the robot forward, side to side, even backwards. Or I can also use the arrow keys, or if you’re a real gamer, you can use some of the character keys as well to do movements and actions that command the robot.

Nice. So it sounds like it’s pretty accessible because I can use some different things and stuff to do it. So tell me a little bit about VGo, about the robot itself because, I mean, and a lot of people have probably maybe seen these or been aware of maybe how they work, but I guess if you can explain how does it work as far as, does it have sensors on it or anything like that in order to, I don’t know, maybe stay out of trouble, make sure it doesn’t go the wrong way, or other things like that? How does that work?

Those are great questions. We think of it like an iPhone and a plan. So you have this device that connects to the internet and then can be logged into or hooked into the network by various people who have permission for it. And then the robot itself has a bumper system on the front. It goes about, I don’t know, three, five miles an hour, about walking speed. We do have a turbo, so it can go a fast walking speed on some of those. And that’s fun if you’re doing it straight away.

If you get close to a cliff, like a staircase, it will stop, it will sense that. So you won’t go fumbling down any stairs. And then if you happen to bump into something, it will pop up on your screen, a big cartoonish ouch if you hit something. And then it will stop the robot and you can determine what to do from there.

Our robots have been likened to a Weeble, if you remember that, the Weebles models, but they don’t fall down. So you can go really fast, you can go over bumps, you can go over thresholds or transitions and carpeting and other things. And it may wobble a little, but we’ve never had a robot fall over on its face.

Nice, nice. And talking about falling over your face from sheer exhaustion, how does it stay charged? I guess I have to ask because let’s say I was a user and I came up and I maybe used it for what I wanted to, and then I just logged off and left it there. How does it stay charged? And I guess how long can it be active on a single charge?

Yeah, it has six to eight hours of runtime.

Oh wow. Okay.

[inaudible 00:16:26] could be using it. Which is really great for one of our use cases, which is to help kids who can’t be at school to be able to attend through a VGo robot. So we actually put the VGo in the classroom with the other kids, and the kid will log on in the morning, go through all of the class instructions, so they get everything that everybody in the classroom does. They get to build their relationships, see the social interactions, build their own interaction with the teacher and things. And then they can go throughout the entire day. And then at the end of the day, they’ll put that back on the dock, charge it up and be ready to go for the next day.

Awesome. That’s really cool. Well, you mentioned the classroom instruction, and I know just from what I’ve heard from folks, VGo and the telepresence robot does give a lot more of that social interaction than just being on a Zoom call and staring at one fixed piece. But what are some other types of situations where VGo is beneficial?

We’ve had a lot of fun working with the VGo and exploring some of the opportunities here. We’ve been in hospitals, both for providers who may have physicians or posts at different campuses, and so they’re able to log in and go and see patients. We’ve also had it for ICUs, so family members who can’t be there but really want to be next to their family member, also in assisted livings and community health so that they can be there for their loved ones who are maybe more elderly.

So we’ve had a lot of really great use cases, all the way down to in houses for sale, and realtors being able to show the property and have them guide themselves through the property without being there. So everywhere from school to healthcare and real estate and on and on.

I never would’ve even thought about real estate, but that would also be a great way if I live very far away and need to tour the place. So that’s awesome. That definitely gives a use case I wouldn’t have even thought of.

I know you said you’ve been in healthcare for quite a while, and I know you’ve been having VGo for a little bit, but where did the idea to move into the telepresence robots come from? Was that just from the MIT background or was it something else?

It was a collaboration with a company that was pursuing this technology, and we thought it was a great idea to bring into our suite. And so we spun off Vecna Robotics in 2019, which was moving more towards manufacturing and warehouse automation. And then we retained the rights for the VGo to continue to develop that for the healthcare space. And so the idea was really out of more of an automation, a supervisory role, and then has grown into something that addresses more of accessibility and disability or even being able to do family access to family members who are receiving care.

Awesome, awesome. Well, I know you probably have quite a few of these, but could you tell me a story about someone’s experience utilizing VGo?

One of the stories that I really love, and is a use case that we’re developing more aggressively right now, is through some, what do they call them? Grad students, but they’re more like fellows for medical, residents, that’s the word. The resident was able to find the VGo in Johns Hopkins Medical Center. And was like, “I have an idea for this. How about we put the robot into the Baltimore Aquarium and we allow the kids who are here on the pediatric ward to take a trip out to the Baltimore Aquarium via VGo.” And so this program is still going. They have that VGo in the Baltimore Aquarium. And we’ve expanded it to a couple more hospitals to allow more kids to be able to book a time at the National Aquarium. They log into the robot via iPad, a tour guide meets them, meets the robot, and then they circle all around. And they can see the fish, they can interact with the tour guide, they even interact with other patrons at the aquarium.

One of the cutest stories of this was there was a young girl who, their face shows up on the robot when they’re using it, and there was a curious young man who came over and said, “What’s going on?” And the tour guide introduced them. And the young man took over the tour. So this young girl patient was talking and interacting with basically a peer as they’re looking at the ray tank and the touch tank. And he’s getting the rays to come over so that a little girl can see them and interact. It was really heartwarming and a wonderful use case of where the technology disappears and the really human interaction is able to shine through.

Well, that’s great. And I think that’s a great story too because whenever you think about, whenever I think at least, about telepresence robots, I think of that in the opposite way, of being in the hospital and not allowing folks to be out of the hospital while they’re in there for a little while. So that’s great in a way to just flip that around. And what a great way to just … especially for folks who have to be in the hospital for an amount of time, to be able to get out and experience things and maybe feel a little less isolated and a little less trapped in there for an amount of time, to be able to actually experience those things in more than just watching a video of it or something like that. But be able to actually interact, not just with tour guides, but apparently with other patrons. So that’s really, really cool.

And one of the things that our partner, Wego, was able to do is run some clinical studies on this and really take a quantitative look at the impact on these resident patients and see the effect on their happiness, loneliness, social isolation, and some indicators that come along with that. And not only that, but pain. So it really helped to reduce some of the pain management, even better than TV or video games. So you can see how that human connection is really necessary for better healing and just pain management.

Nice, nice. Yeah, and I think that’s what a lot of people maybe don’t understand, they think that since there is an intermediary, there is the device, the VGo in between the, I guess, face-to-face communication. Like you said, it fades away and you still get that face-to-face and that feeling of being there and being able to interact more than just on a fixed device and staring at that, but actually being able to move around and get around. Well, I always have to ask, Debbie, what’s next? What’s next for VGo and for Vecna Healthcare?

I’m glad you asked. We have a lot of things coming up that are super exciting. So we actually several years ago submitted a grant to the NIH National Institute on Aging, and we were awarded a $4 million grant to improve our platform for that particular use case.

And a lot of really cool things have come out of that research and development. We have a new robot that’s coming out that has autonomous capabilities, including some reminder actions, go-to locations, and also a follow me or a guide me thing as well. So they’re great as far as mobility goes.

And then we also improved the software application, and so you can create communities that can share and join into this telepresence thing. We have a marketplace where more people can put their robots in different places, and for example, attractions can put them on. And then we can have a larger operational space for hospitals, assisted living and schools to take advantage of a myriad of attraction locations. So from the hardware technology, some great things from that infrastructure and that connection through a software platform. We’re really excited.

And then the thing I’m really excited about is the immersive technology with some augmented reality. So we’re pursuing that as well right now as to see how we can transmit from a 360 camera on our robot to an Oculus virtual reality headset. So you really can feel like you’re being there without being there.

That’ll be super cool. Because yeah, then that actually, that would give you pretty much the exact same feel, the exact same view as if you were right there just looking around in all directions. So that is super, super cool. If our listeners want to find out more about VGo, about the other things we talked about today, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Yep. Come to vecnahealth.com and just leave us a contact form and we’ll be happy to get back with you and you can find out some more information there.

Awesome. We will put that down in the show notes. Well, Debbie, thank you so much for coming on today for introducing us to VGo and just telling all the great things that it can do. I think people maybe are slightly aware of telepresence robots, maybe they’ve seen them on a TV show or a commercial or something else. But thanks for really elaborating on all the great things they can do and just all the wonderful ways that they can be used.

Thanks for having me. It was super fun to talk with you.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@ eastersealscrossroads.org, or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or Intrac. You can find out more about Intrac at relayindiana.com.

Special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host.

This was your Assistive Technology Update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.