America's Greatest Disruptors: Medical Marvels

BY NEWSWEEK STAFF ON 12/15/21 AT 6:30 AM EST

Full article: https://www.newsweek.com/2021/12/24/americas-greatest-disruptors-medical-marvels-1659061.html

Robot Medical Assistants

ANDREA THOMAZ, VIVIAN CHU - CO-FOUNDERS, DILIGENT ROBOTICS

To increase the amount of time nurses and other medical staff have for patient care, Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu designed a robot, called Moxi, to tackle menial tasks—such as delivering personal protective equipment and medicines, carrying tests or lab samples, and picking up or dropping off items to patients—which can consume 30 percent of a shift.

The idea proved critical during the pandemic, when staff were overwhelmed with patients and had to impose protocols to lessen transmission risk. In a single shift, Moxi can complete as many as 75 different 10-minute tasks, freeing hours of nursing staff time to care for patients. Moxi is already used in several Texas health care systems, recently launched at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and is currently integrating into a half dozen other health care systems. "Instead of having robots that take jobs away from humans," says Chu, "we wanted to create robots that eased the stress and workload of one of the most demanding jobs in society, nursing." —K.R.