As the health care industry continues to face staff shortages and burnout, hospitals and other medical centers are forced to find more creative solutions to diminish the workload placed on today’s vastly overworked health care heroes. Some are turning to robotics and artificial intelligence.
Meet Moxi and TUG, two robotic health care heroes making a difference inside hospitals around the country.
Moxi
CEO Andrea Thomaz and CTO Vivian Chu are the cofounders of Diligent Robotics, the A.I. tech company behind the robotic heath care hero Moxi.
“Our groundbreaking, female founders are social robotics experts and founded Diligent Robotics in 2017 to build robots with ever-evolving mobile manipulation, social intelligence, and human-guided learning capabilities,” according to the company’s website. “Moxi, our first robot teammate in the field today, works in hospitals to help clinical staff with non-patient-facing tasks so they have more time for patient care.”
From running patient supplies and delivering lab samples to delivering medications and distributing PPE, Moxi comes equipped with secure storage space, LED eye expressions, Wi-Fi connectivity, a robotic arm and an artificial intelligence.
TUG
Another robot that is making an impact in hospitals across the country is TUG. Designed by tech company Aethon, TUG is an autonomous robot designed to move clinical supplies so that hospital staff can focus on patient care.
“TUG was designed with nurses in mind,” according to the company’s website. “With TUG, nurses know when meds, meals, supplies and tests are arriving. No more chasing. No more calling. No kidding. The result is higher job satisfaction and more time for patient care. TUG securely delivers medications through the hospital and directly to nursing units. It secures and automates deliveries that are normally made through pneumatic tubes or manual couriers including controlled substances and refilling carts.
“TUG eliminates the headaches and restrictions associated with pneumatic tube systems. Best of all, by using biometric security and unique pin codes, TUG ensures only authorized medical personnel add or remove specimens to the secured cabinet.”
