Carilion Giles Community Hospital Deploys Collaborative Robots to Support Nursing Teams
Carilion Clinic announced this month the launch of two new robotic team members as part of a cutting-edge implementation of robotic solutions in health care delivery. Carilion Giles Community Hospital (CGCH) is the first hospital in Western Virginia to deploy Moxi Robots to support the nursing staff, allowing health care teams to focus on what they do best: patient care.
“We are excited to welcome the Moxi robots to our team," said Kristie Williams, vice president of CGCH. "Moxi will support us by allowing front-line staff to maximize their time at the bedside, prioritizing the critical work of caring for our patients. We are thrilled to be piloting the program for Carilion to help determine the potential addition of Moxi robots in the future.”
Nurses and other team members can call on Moxi to help with non-patient-facing tasks like:
- Delivering lab samples that are normally hand-delivered.
- Running patient supplies and items that have been left for a patient at the front desk.
- Distributing PPE and lightweight equipment.
- Fetching items from central supply that aren’t normally stocked on care units.
Moxi was designed and created by Diligent Robotics, an Austin-based robotics company that develops artificial intelligence to enable robots to collaborate with and adapt to humans. Moxi is equipped with an arm, gripper hand, and mobility to transport lightweight medical resources and navigate hospital hallways.
“We are excited to see this project begin and to watch the implementation at our latest hospital,” said Dr. Vivian Chu, co-founder of Diligent Robotics. “Nurses and clinical care teams get pulled in so many directions, and I love that we can integrate Moxi into the team to help relieve some of this stress.”
Compatible with the busy environments of hospitals, Moxi’s technical features include:
- Social intelligence: opens elevators and doors on its own, won’t bump into people or object in hallways, happily poses for selfies.
- Mobile manipulation: interacts with the hospital’s existing environment such as ADA doors and elevators without requiring a significant investment in infrastructure.
- Human-guided learning: The more staff use Moxi, the more Moxi learns and adapts.
“What we have seen is that nurses can spend an astonishing 30% of their time fetching and gathering supplies,” said Dr. Andrea Thomaz, co-founder of Diligent Robotics. “That’s a lot of time spent away from patients, so we designed Moxi to be the perfect teammate for them.”
This is the latest example of digital infrastructure used to improve the staff and patient experience at Carilion, helping teams to improve the health of the communities that they serve.
