'Moxi is part of the team': A robot is helping ease the burden on nurses at Edward Hospital

As Moxi the Robot glides down the hallways at Edward Hospital in Naperville, she's met by stares, double-takes and lots of smiles.

Among the newest hires at Edward Hospital and Elmhurst Hospital are a team of high-tech helpers easing the burden of delivery tasks usually handled by the nursing staff.

The goal of Moxi the Robot is to free up time for overworked nurses so they can focus more on patient care.

“We're able to be with our patients more at their bedside instead of having to run off the unit to get something,” said Suzy Garcia, a patient care technician at Edward Hospital. “Moxi is part of the team.”

Moxi is the brainchild of Austin, Texas-based Diligent Robotics, which began developing her about seven years ago. While Moxi's been implemented throughout the country, the four robots at the two Edward-Elmhurst Health system hospitals are the first in the Midwest to go live.

Contrary to the perception that robots will take over nursing care, Moxi will not do any nursing at all, according to Diligent's Moxi expert, Rob Norman.

Based on a complete mapping of every hospital floor, Moxi is programmed to not enter certain spaces such as patient rooms. So, no, Moxi won't be going into Grandma's room in the middle of the night to take her temperature and blood pressure.

“Our staff is always working on ways to improve Moxi any way we can, making it more efficient and more user-friendly,” Norman said. “Anything that's possible, we'll do.”

Meet Moxi

At about 4 feet tall and 300 pounds and capable of carrying 70 pounds of supplies, Moxi is a graceful, roundish, white robot with blue trim and an interface similar to an iPad.

With blue LED eyes that turn into pink hearts when someone says hello, she offers a much friendlier persona than R2D2 from “Star Wars.” Especially when she “meep meeps” to a bystander or politely asks for help pushing elevator buttons.

Friendliness aside, Moxi is a 24/7 workhorse that can stay on the move for about six to eight hours straight before needing a recharge. But when she's not on a task, Moxi can dock herself and rest at one of the hospital's many charging stations.

The two Moxis at the Naperville Hospital can perform a combined 70 to 150 tasks per day. At 15 minutes per delivery, up to nearly 40 hours of work time per day can be returned to the nursing staff.

“About a year ago, I shadowed on all of the units and watched nurses doing their day-to-day work,” said Trish Fairbanks, the chief nursing officer at Edward Hospital. “One of the things I noticed is how often they were pulled away from patient care to go and run tasks, to go get things. That's a huge dissatisfaction for nurses.

“They like to be with their patients,” she said. “Moxi doing the running around for them is just super cool.”

Moxi's mission

Moxi can deliver items to and from kiosks strategically placed throughout the hospital. In addition to not being allowed in patient rooms, she's not allowed into the women's and children's units, and she can't deliver narcotics or used items that haven't been cleaned.

With her three secured drawers, she can handle just about everything else. Whether it's paperwork, IV tubes, test samples, medication, electronics, personal protective equipment or even food, drinks and flowers from the gift shop, Moxi delivers.

“We've really been looking for creative and cost-efficient ways to make the lives of our staff easier,” said Hiral Patel, the innovation program manager for Edward-Elmhurst Health. “A health care worker can spend about 30% of their day with these mundane, routine, time-consuming tasks. The fact that Moxi can take over some of that is a huge efficiency for us.”

Moxi's cost is based on a subscription model that includes maintenance and software updates. Based on the number of tasks performed by the two Moxi's at the hospital, the money saved goes directly into patient care.

Moxi's moxie

Staff members at Edward Hospital said one of the best parts about Moxi is the ease of use.

She smoothly moves across various surfaces, and the only upkeep is making sure the sensors are clear, there's no debris on the wheels and the drawers are regularly disinfected. When she's fully programmed for the hospital, she'll even be able to push elevator doors on her own with an extendible arm.

She has a badge in her stomach area that grants access through various hospital doors. Staff member badges, meanwhile, allow them to “log in” and interact with Moxi.

With the proper badge, nurses gain drawer access to insert items and remove them. Each transaction is electronically recorded to know what was delivered, when and where it was delivered and who was responsible for the delivery.

“We had a good education on how to utilize Moxi,” said Lauren Simon, a clinical coordinator at Edward Hospital. “Since she's so simple to use; it's easy to integrate it into our busy workflow.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge with Moxi is finding her limits, something continually being pushed by the folks at Diligent Robotics.

And while Moxi's primary mission is to provide more patient care, hospital officials also want to create more free time for staff.

Moxi's not the only one needing a recharge.

“We're really trying to focus on staff well-being,” Patel said. “They'll go out and get a cup of coffee at 8 a.m. and not get back to it until 11. We want our staff to be able to take some of that extra time for themselves for self-care.”