DESIGN-IVA-HC workshop

The first workshop on

Designing Safe and Effective Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) for Health Care: Risks, Benefits, and Best Practices

Berlin, Germany, September 16, 2025

Integrating Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) in health care transforms patient care by enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and personalization. However, as these systems become more prevalent, ensuring they are designed safely is critical to minimize risks such as misinformation, bias, and data privacy breaches. Besides its safety, an IVA’s effectiveness and ease of use must be ensured. This workshop addresses these pressing concerns by exploring the benefits and challenges of IVAs in health care and providing best practices for developing systems that are not only innovative but also ethical, reliable, and patient-centered.

Objectives of the workshop

The aim is to learn about each other’s work and to collaboratively address challenges in particular concerning:

The present and prospective risks and benefits of IVAs in healthcare settings
The present and prospective benefits of IVAs, especially for vulnerable patient groups
Guidelines and principles on how IVAs should be designed and used, as well as guidelines and principles for designing the appearance and modeling of the behavior of IVAs in healthcare settings
The specific qualities of IVAs in terms of hybrid embodiment (co-embodiment, re-embodiment, trans-local embodiment)
Guidelines and principles on designing the social role and relationship trajectories of IVAs in health care settings
Organizational challenges in introducing IVAs in the healthcare system, including concepts and models describing the interactional social context of engaging with IVAs in healthcare settings, both with patients and health professionals
Guidelines and principles on how IVAs should be evaluated
Mitigating risks of trust and over-trust in long-term use by design

Submission

We welcome original papers not submitted elsewhere. All submissions must follow the ACM Master Article Template and be submitted via EasyChair. We accept:

Full Papers (6–8 pages, excl. references): Completed research, case studies, or theoretical contributions related to the design or evaluation of IVAs in controlled settings.

All submissions will be double-blind peer-reviewed by expert reviewers. All accepted full-paper submissions will be presented orally and published in the proceedings

All questions about submissions should be emailed to: design-iva-hc@immersive-reality-lab.de

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline: 30 June 2025
Workshop date: 16 September 2025

Program

The workshop will be held on September 16, 2025, in Berlin, Germany, as part of ACM IVA 2025. The detailed program, including invited speakers and session schedule, will be announced closer to the event date.

Organizers

Navid Ashrafi, Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences (Navid.Ashrafi@hshl.de)

Philipp Lars Harnisch, Technische Universität Berlin (p.harnisch@tu-berlin.de)

Stefan Hillmann, Technische Universität Berlin (stefan.hillmann@tu-berlin.de)

Philipp Graf, Hochschule München (philipp.graf@hm.edu)

Manuela Marquardt, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (manuela.marquardt@charite.de)

David Grieshammer, Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences (David.Grieshammer@hshl.de)

Sven Quadflieg, Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences (Sven.Quadflieg@hshl.de)

Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons (corresponding person), Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences (jan-niklas.voigt-antons@hshl.de)