NBC Bay Area: Top Hospital Adds Robots to Their Staff
"Press: Here," a weekly technology show on Bay Area NBC affiliate KNTV, recently spoke with David Marshall, JD, DNP, RN, senior vice president, chief nursing executive and chair of the Department of Nursing at Cedars-Sinai, about Moxi, a robot designed to give nurses more time with patients.
The robot transports prescriptions, equipment and supplies that nurses would otherwise have to retrieve themselves, Marshall told host Scott McGrew. These tasks can take up a third of a nurse’s time, and Cedars-Sinai's two Moxi robots saved nurses 300 miles of walking during their first six weeks in use.
"Moxi can map the environment of the medical center and navigate itself around through elevators, down hallways, into corridors and pick things up where they need to be picked up and deliver them where they need to be delivered," Marshall told McGrew.
The robots were created by Diligent Robots, a graduate of the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator, which provides Cedars-Sinai experts to mentor healthcare technology companies that are "trying to solve problems like getting nurses more time to spend with their patients," Marshall said.
He told McGrew that nurses appreciate Moxi’s utility, and that they enjoy seeing Moxi’s friendly face, which includes heart-shaped eyes that blink. "Many of them say they see this as a new team member that’s really there to help them out," Marshall said.
Moxi is a hit with patients as well. "Just the other day, someone sent me a picture of Moxi playing peek-a-boo with a pediatric patient in the hallway," Marshall told McGrew.
Click here to view the complete interview from NBC Bay Area.