Robots help move things around at Rochester General and Unity hospital
By Mike Costanza
Eight robot messengers called Moxis roll around two Rochester Regional Health hospitals, transporting essential supplies and other goods from unit to unit.
“We’re using Moxi to help move medications, to help move labs [laboratory specimens], patient belongings,” said Casey Wilbert, the senior director of acute care pharmacy services for Rochester Regional Health. “We’ll eventually move to food and nutrition services.”
And the robot does its job with heart—sort of. Moxi waves a greeting with its lone arm whenever it encounters someone on its travels, and its blue “eyes” turn into pink hearts.
Moxi is the creation of Diligent Robotics, an Austin, Texas, firm that is developing robot assistants that perform routine tasks, freeing health care workers for patient care. Rochester Regional Health (RRH) began using the machines earlier this year to ease the strain on the employees of Rochester General Hospital (RGH) and Unity Hospital.
“Our health care workforce is stretched with the tasks that they have to do,” Wilbert said. “What we need to do to take care of patients is make sure that our team members are back closer to the patient, and closer to the bedside.”
Moxi travels around on wheels and has three lockable drawers—a large drawer in the front and two smaller ones in the rear. It uses its arm to open automatic doors and those activated by push plates or employee’s badges.
“It has a built-in employee badge just like any of our team members would have,” Wilbert said. “If we have a door which is badge-access-only, it is still able to get in there.”
In a nutshell, here’s how Moxi does its job. An employee places a package inside one of the robot’s drawers and tells the machine where to take the item. The drawer locks, and Moxi autonomously heads to that location. There, another hospital employee uses his, her or their badge to open the drawer and take the item out. Wilbert said RRH is the first New York state health care provider to employ Moxis in acute care hospitals.
Transporting an item from one hospital unit to another might seem like a simple task, but the Moxis had to be prepared to do it. When the first machines were delivered in early August, Diligent employees began training their electronic brains to learn how to navigate corridors, open doors and steer clear of objects in the two hospitals in which they’re stationed.
Four Moxis became operational at Unity Hospital on Oct. 12, and the rest were on-the-job at RGH on Oct. 19. Though they can now perform most of the tasks for which they were acquired, the machines are still learning how to do part of their job.
“Elevators are the most complex part of the training,” Wilbert said. “Diligent Robotics team members meet the robot at the elevator, assist them on, ride the elevator and assist them off.”
Wilbert said RRH’s Moxis should be fully autonomous by April, and that the health care system is exploring the possibility of using the robots at its Potsdam, New York affiliate, Canton-Potsdam Hospital.