Healthcare reimagined: Carebots from hospital to home.

OBJECTIVES To explore how healthcare robots (carebots) are transforming care delivery across the continuum, from hospital to home, particularly in response to ageing populations, chronic disease burdens and healthcare workforce shortages. STUDY DESIGN A brief narrative grounded in the authors' observations, professional experiences and selected literature. METHODS This short communication draws on real-world insights and current trends to explore how carebots are used in hospitals and communities. It highlights their roles in nursing, rehabilitation, mobility and remote care, and examines key barriers, such as acceptance, cost, capability, safety and reliability. RESULTS In hospitals, carebots improve efficiency, reduce staff workload and enhance patient outcomes. In homes and communities, they support ageing-in-place by improving mobility, offering cognitive support and enabling remote care. Although carebots have the potential to bridge the urban-rural healthcare divide, adoption remains low in resource-limited settings due to stigma, high costs, inadequate infrastructure and policy gaps. CONCLUSIONS To unlock the full potential of carebots in addressing global care gaps, focus should be on inclusive design, equitable investment, and supportive policies and training. Carebots can pave the way for more person-centred, tech-enabled healthcare across the entire care continuum, from hospital to home.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Public Health

• Publication date

  2025-08-19

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Sociology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.puhe.2025.105920PMID 40834625
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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