How Hospitals Can Take Advantage of the Service Robot Revolution

Like few other large facilities, hospitals are akin to small cities within their walls, with a constant score of moving parts that must be orchestrated perfectly to keep things running efficiently and safely. And hard at work behind the scenes of any large healthcare facility is an army of dedicated EVS and other support professionals whose careful, physically-demanding labor provides the scaffolding upon which operational success is built. But with an ongoing labor shortage and a high turnover for EVS roles, it’s never been more crucial to recruit, support and retain these valuable members of staff for the good of patients, their clinicians, and hospital operations as a whole. 

 

How can hospitals and healthcare facilities better support these key staff members and fill in the gaps where staffing is tenuous? Today’s autonomous robotic solutions offer a smart way forward.

 

The significant and varied EVS demands of a hospital can stretch employees thin. In order to promote optimal patient care, core EVS resources are ideally focused on patient areas. Yet large scale facility cleaning—particularly floor cleaning in high-traffic areas such as hallways, lobbies, etc., must also be completed on a near-constant basis. Consistently clean floors not only improve hygiene for patients, staff, and visitors, but also impact consumer and stakeholder perception of quality.

 

Most hospitals currently use some combination of commercial vacuum cleaners, riding and walk-behind scrubbers, and manual mopping/spot cleaning for floor maintenance. What these techniques all have in common is the human time and labor required to operate the equipment and accomplish the task day-in, day-out. Robotic floor cleaners, by contrast, can operate 24/7, with periodic breaks for charging or cleaning solution replenishment. When utilized within a fleet structure, there will always be a BoT at the ready, allowing human EVS staff to recoup enormous amounts of time previously spent cleaning floors, and redirecting those hours towards deep cleaning of patient areas, rigorous disinfection practices, and other pressing maintenance concerns. Fully autonomous floor cleaning robots, like the CC1, CC3 and CC5 come with the added benefit of self-maintenance—they are able to self-charge, empty their tanks of dirty water and refill with clean water, making them virtually hands-free. 

 

Another unquestionable benefit to robotic cleaning technology is its enablement of data collection and transparency. Unlike manual machines, autonomous cleaning robots record precise cleaning data that can be easily viewed and synthesized to optimize workflows and provide assurance of task completion. As modern healthcare systems embrace technology integration and data utilization, this type of objective cleaning data is a game-changer in EVS consistency, efficiency, and optimization.

 

The complex hospital environment requires rigorous infection control protocols. With a combination of ill, injured, convalescent, and immunocompromised patients housed for varying lengths of time within one facility, healthcare-acquired infections are a lurking threat, particularly for the elderly and immunocompromised. And as Covid showed us, infection threats aren’t always bacterial. Preventing the spread of airborne viruses and other pathogens within a healthcare setting is now more important than ever.

 

Autonomous robotic disinfection units like the Puductor 2 and BubbleFish can significantly enhance existing infection control methods by adding another line of defense to a facility’s disinfection workflows. 

 

The Puductor 2 uses a combination of medical-grade UVC light and ultrasonic dry mist to deactivate and eliminate Candida Auris, SARS-CoV-2, MRSA, C. diff, VRE and other pathogens with 99.9% efficacy. UVC light uses short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation, which carries the amount of energy necessary to neutralize, or deactivate the DNA of microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria and other pathogens. And unlike UVC-only solutions, the Puductor’s additional dry-mist capabilities allow hospitals to safely sanitize areas while humans are in the vicinity. Dry-mist can also reach areas UVC light can potentially miss, and is more effective than UVC against many types of bacteria, ensuring a more complete disinfection solution within one autonomous BoT.

 

The BubbleFish is a smaller, dry-mist-only unit that’s compact enough to fit in tight areas like nursing and supply stations, but powerful enough to cover large areas with its mist delivery system. Both BoTs use LIDAR technology to move through the environment safely around humans and objects, and operate autonomously, without the need for human intervention save refilling dry-mist reservoirs and charging. The Puductor 2 also includes voice warnings when preparing to start disinfection, and smart UVC shut-off when humans are detected.

 

Cleaning isn’t the only time-consuming and repetitive task undertaken by healthcare support and operations staff. Supply retrieval and delivery, patient meal service, and other fetch-and-deliver errands take up a considerable portion of the working day for some hospital staff. And even nurses aren’t immune from this kind of back-and-forth. For instance, within healthcare settings, it’s not uncommon for nurses and other staff to walk upwards of 4 miles each shift. Finding and gathering supplies and delivering items to patient rooms is estimated to take 11.8% of a nurse’s total work time, according to a recent study.

 

Automated delivery solutions present healthcare facilities with real opportunities to improve efficiency and safety while reducing worker fatigue. Autonomous delivery robots are typically of small-to-medium size and ergonomically designed to allow for easy access to trays and interior compartments. Some, like the BellaBoT, incorporate disarming and engaging facial expressions and interactive voice responses, making them ideal for scenarios involving patients, such as meal delivery. Other units, such as the SwiftBoT, FlashBoT, and W3, are particularly useful within complex, multi-level healthcare facilities due to their ability to be integrated with elevators and automatic doors. The SwiftBoT and FlashBoT both provide enhanced safety and security through passcode-protected interior chambers, the FlashBoT coming with the added benefit of UV-C disinfection capabilities.

 

Equipped with robotic delivery assistance, healthcare workers and support staff can take fewer steps, make fewer repetitive trips, and be assured of some automated backup for the neverending series of small tasks that pile up each shift.

 

Check-in desks and guest services outposts are busy places in a hospital, fielding hundreds of patients, visitors, and questions each day. While an empathetic human touch is both necessary and ideal for some of these interactions, many basic concierge functions can be handled by autonomous concierge robots, increasing efficiency and giving staff time for the person-to-person care that matters most. 

 

The KettyBoT can act as a versatile mobile receptionist and guide, sitting at the welcome desk and directing visitors via a displayed map, or physically guiding them to the desired location. This saves frontdesk staff time and ensures that the desk isn’t left unmanned when visitors need to be guided to another part of the hospital. The KettyBoT can also play messages and general hospital information or guidelines on the screen, acting as a walking, talking signage board. 

 

The next-generation TemiBoT is an AI-powered hosting, guiding and interactive unit that can be highly integrated with hospital IT systems and operations. TemiBoT can guide visitors to different areas of the hospital, integrate visitor or patient check-in, and answer questions about the facility all in one place. The interactive display screen can also support telehealth visits, or allow hospital administrators to provide live, remotely guided tours to VIPs and other guests.

 

As healthcare facilities begin incorporating more autonomous robots into their operations, oversight through a unified fleet management system becomes crucial to the successful utilization of these valuable robotic assets. This is why Pringle Robotics is leading the industry in developing a unified facility management platform to ensure that a facility’s robots are not merely standalone assets, but actively monitored and managed components of a comprehensive system. Solutions such as Pringle NOC allow facility EVS teams to monitor, track, and view detailed task reports from all connected robots and third-party assets, giving managers vital insight into robot usage, health, and workflow efficiency, ensuring absolute transparency in facility cleaning operations. 

 

We’ve also developed solutions that take things a step further by not only monitoring robotic cleaners, but supporting custodial operations as a whole, with Pringle Pristine. An EVS scheduling platform with seamless NOC integration, this task management and tracking solution improves efficiency and reporting. It incorporates data and configurations from the NOC to build task lists for custodial staff. Based on defined workflows and data from sensor data, Pristine provides real-time updates to scheduled custodial duties to ensure the most efficient use of staff time. Data collected from Pristine, such as cleaning times, can be used to further adjust workflows and schedules.

 

Automated facility management solutions for hospitals and healthcare aren’t just a far-off promise. Autonomous robots are rapidly being adopted by some of the biggest health systems in the country, particularly in the realms of EVS and delivery support. The gains in efficiency, cleanliness, and employee satisfaction are here to be realized now, and will only increase as facility automation becomes more commonplace.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about autonomous robotic solutions for healthcare facility management, get in touch with our experts today!