ABSTRACT 

Robots have been used to augment capabilities in medicine and healthcare for a few decades, however, they could not be exploited to their full extent due to the mechanical incompatibility between rigid (hard) robots and soft tissue. Recently, with the beginning of fabrication of robots with soft materials (i.e., soft robotics), more applications and opportunities have opened up for the use of robotics in healthcare, where a safe interaction between robots and humans is required. 

The inclusion of robots in biomedical applications have provided the following advantages: 1) increased efficiency and accuracy of delicate procedures; 2) continuous, round the clock rehabilitation; and, 3) capability to provide an alternative for missing or damaged limbs and organs. While these reasons have helped to advance healthcare, soft robots have not yet been exploited to automate repetitive and time consuming tasks, which are currently performed by human professionals. Most medical procedures, except for some diagnostics, are performed in conventional healthcare environments (e.g., clinics, hospitals, etc.) and require trained medical personnel. 

Several point of care testing (PoCT) devices have been developed to provide easy and inexpensive alternatives to conventional diagnostic tests. PoCT devices are easy to use, inexpensive and can be performed outside formal healthcare environments without requiring trained medical personnel. PoCT also achieves the goal of reducing the requirement of medical infrastructure (both material and human) by bringing diagnostic tests to the patient (as opposed to forcing the patient to travel to a healthcare facility to get medical attention). PoCT devices have demonstrated to provides quick results for diagnostic tests, which leads to fast diagnosis and improved health outcomes. 

Along with improving the capabilities of PoCT devices, it is essential to reduce the need of intervention from trained healthcare personnel while using PoCT devices. Soft robots can be the used as a method to deploy PoCT devices in a repeatable and error free way and reduce the need of human intervention in common diagnostic tests. The mechanical compatibility between human tissue, flexible PoCT devices and soft robots makes them ideal candidates for increasing the potential and impact of personalized healthcare.