Robots Free Staff For More Important Tasks
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
Robots that deliver medications, food, and labs are freeing staff member to spend more time with patients
Delivering meals, transporting medications from the pharmacy to nurses’ station, and taking tests to the lab are just a few of the daily tasks consuming hospital staff’s time. With the introduction of automated delivery robots, nurses are being freed from “invisible” jobs, allowing them more time to provide personal, bedside care.
An automated delivery system facilitates more frequent and secure delivery of medications since prescriptions must be checked in and out of a cart. There is also a better record of who may come in contact with controlled drugs and delivery robots are more accountable because of their security measures. All this adds up to saved time and money for hospitals choosing to utilize robots for speedy delivery of test results and prescriptions.
The US Department of Health and Human Services reported on the University of Maryland Medical Center, which, “In 2004, implemented the first mobile robot in the trauma unit, and then put in place seven additional robots in the same and other areas between 2004 and 2007. In 2010, the hospital added chain-of-custody software that allows the robots to deliver controlled substances. In January 2013, the medical center upgraded the last three robots to complete controlled substance delivery and tracking in all critical care areas.”
HHS reports UofM addressed the problem of a backlog created when having pharmacy technicians deliver medications by hand. “For these orders, which are primarily nonstat and cannot be delivered by pneumatic tube, pharmacy staff receive an electronic medication order from a physician, print the label, fill and check the order, scan, and place the medication in one of the robot’s medication drawers, and then select a destination on computer software that communicates with the robot.” The robot then navigates to its destination where a nurse must enter a security code in order to retrieve the medication.
Using automated delivery, the hospital’s delivery time went from 74 minutes to 30 minutes and delivery reliability increased 23 percent. The hospital also saw a decline in lost and misdelivered prescriptions. The system also freed up 6,123 hours for nurses by reducing time spent tracking or retrieving medications. And time and accuracy weren’t the only benefits: “The per-trip cost with a robot averages $2.40, less than one-half of the $5.50 cost of the typical hand delivery using a pharmacy technician.”
One of the newest models of automated delivery is the TUG autonomous delivery robot by Aethon. According to MedCity News, this robot “uses a real-time tracking system powered by a support center in the cloud” and “constructs a laser map of the hospital floor plan to create pathways and endpoints, and set up ’rules of the road’ to guide TUG in its travels. Each TUG is programmed with a map of the hospital floor plan to create pathways and endpoints. It uses a scanning laser and 27 infrared and ultrasonic sensors to detect and model the environment in real time to maintain an accurate position and to avoid obstacles. It can communicate with the hospital’s wireless system to open elevators.”