Enabling eye contact in telemedicine: building a low-cost medical interrotron

No longer just a device for documentarians, we've created an inexpensive Interrotron to demonstrate the impact of non-verbal communication during video telemedicine encounters.

Face-to-face telemedicine consultations are increasingly a routine interaction for modern healthcare providers. These platforms are effective at communication of information; however, salient nonverbal communication signals that may have been exchanged in person are often lost.

The documentary filmmaker Errol Morris is credited with developing a device called an “Interrotron” - a set of connected cameras and teleprompters in order to allow indirect eye contact to be made from an interviewer and a subject.

Here, we first review the literature behind non-verbal communication and eye contact during clinical encounters, then discuss the fabrication of a low-cost Interrotron for a physician’s office. We then set out describing our early experience using this setup in simulated clinical experiences.

How-to build your own low-cost Interrotron

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