Robots have assisted surgeons for decades, but now they are being deployed to new areas of US hospitals as the healthcare industry grapples with an acute shortage of workers.

One such robot is Diligent Robotics’ Moxi, a four foot tall humanoid on wheels with one arm and heart-shaped LED eyes. At 30 hospitals across the US, Moxi automates so-called “hunting and gathering” tasks like trips to supply closets that pull nurses away from patient care.

Using Moxi’s lockable storage compartment, a pharmacist in one hospital ward can securely deliver medication to a nurse caring for patients in another.

“We are just automating handoffs between two humans,” says Andrea Thomaz, Diligent’s chief executive. “Nursing officers want teams to be comfortable offloading tasks so they can focus on their clinical workflow.”



Hospitals, nursing homes and physicians’ practices have long warned that the growth of the healthcare workforce has stagnated, in a crisis that economists say could restrict access to medical care, particularly in retirement destinations. The Covid pandemic worsened the situation by pushing millions of demoralised and burnt-out workers out of the field entirely.

The US could have as many as 100,000 critical healthcare worker vacancies by 2028, according to a report by consultancy Mercer. While it projects a “modest surplus” of physicians, the need will be highest for medical assistants who take vital signs, change bed linen and bathe patients for comparatively low pay.

Robotics engineers say the solution could be automation. Though few aim to deploy robots to diagnose and treat patients, a wave of innovators are rolling out new products aimed at relieving understaffing by automating mundane tasks such as transporting lab samples, disinfecting equipment or cleaning floors.

While nurses’ unions across the US have protested over the rollout of AI to formulate care plans and schedule appointments, robotics have received a far warmer reception, according to a study published by researchers at the University of Texas Austin in medical journal JMIR Ageing. Kate McAfoose, president of Chang Robotics, says that offloading these operations and logistical tasks to robots can save nurses up to 40 per cent of their day.

“We’re not trying to take any care providers’ jobs,” McAfoose says. “We’re trying to bridge the gap in the labour shortage that’s just continuing to get more and more aggravated.”

The labour shortfall could not come at a worse time for hospitals. Populations across the globe are ageing, with the World Health Organization forecasting that the share of the global population older than 60 will double to 22 per cent by 2050. The trend is expected to strain healthcare systems as more people seek treatment for age-related diseases such as hearing loss, osteoarthritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

But hospitals are challenging atmospheres for robots, which operate best in more controlled environments such as warehouses. Many hospitals are older buildings with hallways congested with vulnerable people and medical equipment.

However, recent advancements in artificial intelligence have made it possible for robots to navigate decades-old elevators and confusing corridor layouts by pressing buttons and opening doors on their own.

That is why Phil Zheng, chief operations officer of AI-powered service-robot maker Richtech Robotics, thinks robots cleaning floors, removing trash and delivering meals will become commonplace in US hospitals in the next five years.

Richtech initially designed robots to take on what he calls “busy work” in restaurants and hotels, but expanded into the healthcare sector after hospital administrators in Spartanberg, South Carolina approached the company for help delivering supplies from one part of the hospital to another.



That does not mean that engineers have given up on incorporating robotics into patient care, however. Robotics allow doctors to perform surgical procedures with smaller, more precise incisions than they can with conventional tools, often by operating the machines from a console inside the operating room.

“From a patient’s perspective, this can all seem a bit ‘space age’ and intimidating,” says Mike Marinaro, the executive vice-president of robotics maker Medtronic’s surgical unit. “But what the patient needs to know is these are better described as robot-assisted surgeries. There’s always a physician behind the robot.”

Engineers are divided on whether or not that could change as artificial intelligence continues to advance. The process of automating hospitals is still in its “infancy”, Zheng says.