Meet Moxi: Community Hospital’s new ‘co-bots’

Two new members have joined the team at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula — a pair of robots named Moxi.

The robots are designed to do routine but time-consuming tasks, like picking up and delivering supplies, medication, and small equipment. The goal is to give clinical staff, especially nurses, more time to focus on their patients.

The two Moxi robots have been rolling around Community Hospital since mid-February, mapping the layout, much like a Roomba vacuum cleaner maps the floorplan of a house. About the size of a human, Moxi has sparkling eyes of heart-shaped lights and emits a “meep” sound that can alert you to its presence. It has a robotic arm that can open doors and push buttons, and can wave to people it passes. Its torso has three secure storage compartments for the items it’s delivering.

Diligent Robotics Inc., maker of Moxi, estimates as much as one-third of a nurse’s time is spent on non-patient-facing work. Moxi was created to change that, working as a “co-bot,” collaborating with staff, not replacing them.

“In healthcare, we have to look at doing things differently,” says Debbie Sober, Vice President/Chief Nursing Officer at Montage Health. “We need to use tools and technology to help our staff be at the bedside more. We have to be careful not to put all of our trust in electronics, because we need our brains for critical thinking and our human touch for care. But we need to lean into technology to help us.”

Community Hospital is the first hospital in Northern or Central California to add Moxi robots, and the third in California. Hospital leaders visited Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, which has four Moxis, and “right away,” Sober says, “we said, “We’ve got to have this.”

Moxi’s technical features include:

• Social intelligence: can open elevators and doors on its own and won’t bump into people or objects
• Mobile manipulation: can interact with the hospital’s existing environment without requiring significant investment in infrastructure
• Human-guided learning: the more staff uses Moxi, the more Moxi learns and adapts to the hospital

Requests for Moxi to perform tasks are made on iPads at kiosks in specific areas of Community Hospital. Moxi can prioritize tasks and can make several stops. Items can only be retrieved from Moxi’s drawers by the person who requested them, using their badge for electronic access. Moxi robots are monitored 24/7 by staff at the Austin, Texas headquarters of Diligent Robotics, who can troubleshoot or alert hospital staff if issues develop.

The robots are owned and maintained by Diligent and used at Community Hospital through a paid subscription system. Funding is provided by Montage Health Foundation, which has supported numerous innovation efforts to improve patient care.

Staff are still getting to know the robots and their capabilities. So far, they have been well received, Sober says, and she is hopeful about their impacts on patient care — and the nursing staff.

“We go into nursing to spend time caring for our patients,” Sober says. “That’s where we find the true meaning in what we do.”

Learn more about Moxi at www.montagehealth.org/moxi.