New ideas for hospital automation: solving the “last mile” in hospitals with AMR technology

New ideas for hospital automation: solving the “last mile” in hospitals with AMR technology

Brief analysis of application cases in the medical industry

With the advancement of medical reforms in the past 10 years, hospitals in various regions of China have achieved unprecedented smart upgrades, which include not only the improvement of medical technology, but also the improvement of overall medical care efficiency, quality and doctor-patient relationship in hospitals. As a key step in the digital transformation of hospitals, it is crucial to use technology to improve the efficiency of hospital operations. McKinsey analysis shows that on average, the cost saved by the implementation of technology scenarios is equivalent to 10% of the total annual medical expenditure.

It is not new for hospitals to explore automated logistics, but the use of autonomous mobile robot technology (AMR: Autonomous Mobile Robots) to complete some transportation tasks is still in the exploratory stage. Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR)'s ecological partner, Aixin Smart Medical Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Aixin Smart Medical"), has currently deployed one and four autonomous mobile robots (AMR: Autonomous Mobile Robots) in Tongji Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University in Shanghai (hereinafter referred to as Tongji Hospital) and Zhijiang Campus of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University (hereinafter referred to as Zhijiang Campus), respectively, for use in the hospital's inpatient department, operating room, laboratory and pharmacy. In conjunction with the hospital's existing pneumatic logistics system and box logistics system, it assists in the transportation of medical supplies such as medicines, test samples, materials, and sterile surgical consumables, and stably replaces the previous transportation mode of manual and cart transportation. 

AMR is to the two hospitals what shared bikes are to the general public. It solves the "last mile" of material transportation within hospitals. Compared with traditional AGV robots that rely on QR codes or tracks to move, AMRs with autonomous navigation capabilities are more flexible and more suitable for environments like hospitals that have stricter requirements for safety, adaptability, and antibacterial properties.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, Zhijiang Campus

AMR cooperates with box-type logistics system to realize logistics automation

In most hospitals, nurses’ job responsibilities go far beyond medical care. From communicating with patients’ families, executing specialist nursing routines, ward patient rounds, to managing medical documents and items, counting, moving and handing over, nurses’ daily work is high-load, long, complicated and changeable. Taking Zhijiang Hospital as an example, the average daily number of surgeries in its operating room exceeds 100, which means that the consumables are transported from the sterile room to the operating room more than 100 times a day, and these tasks are mainly completed by manual running errands. 

The practice of Tongji Hospital and Zhijiang Campus has proved that by deploying AMR, the work efficiency of hospital operation management and back-end support departments can be improved, allowing medical workers to devote more time to professional services and spend less time on highly repetitive and low-tech work, and indirectly optimize patients' medical experience. 

AMR responds to the three unique characteristics of hospital logistics

The first pain point responded to was the large number of non-technical repetitive tasks in the daily work of medical staff in the two hospitals. As one of the earliest hospitals to explore AMR technology, Tongji Hospital currently adopts AMR technology in the hospital's inpatient department, responsible for picking up and delivering medicines for inpatients. The hospital has two requirements for its employment. First, when working independently, it must be able to complete transportation across departments, across floors, and across wards. The robot must navigate autonomously, learn to enter and exit elevators, and ensure that no collisions occur, which is highly safe. Second, AMR, as a supplement to other logistics methods, completes the "last mile" of transportation between the site and the inpatient nurse station, completely replacing traditional manpower methods. 

The second pain point is the hundreds of manual material transportation tasks that occur every day. AMR can improve the hospital's existing logistics system and form a fully automated closed-loop transportation system. 

Zhijiang Hospital currently uses box-type logistics to transport intravenous infusion, disposable items in the supply room, lunch boxes and other materials. Small items such as specimens and emergency ST drugs are transported through pneumatic logistics, and the final material delivery work is completed by AMR from the secondary warehouse to various points in the hospital operating room and the specimen receiving room of the laboratory department, fully realizing fully automatic distribution from the warehouse to the ward to the operating room and other points. 

The third advantage of collaborative mobile service robots over other transport robots is that they respond to the challenges of complex and crowded hospital environments through their multiple safety technology functions and autonomous navigation capabilities, avoiding possible human errors or cross-infection risks. Whether it is a temperature measurement robot in the lobby or a logistics robot between departments, collaborative mobile service robots must adapt to this complex working environment and adapt quickly without changing the physical environment. 

Also in the Zhijiang campus, AMR is responsible for collecting inspection and quarantine samples from various departments and transporting and distributing them to the laboratory department. The entire transportation process is contactless, effectively reducing the risk of cross-infection, sample contamination, and even the spread of the epidemic.

In addition, the transportation of medicines and sterile consumables required for the operating room also faces strict handling requirements . Using AMRs instead of medical staff or full-time personnel to transport medical equipment, high-value auxiliary materials, low-value consumables and surgical kits can reduce the risk of carrying infectious bacteria and the possibility of cross-infection during transportation. In addition, with the help of the hospital's special logistics data screen, medical staff can monitor in real time and prioritize the deployment of AMRs to transport emergency supplies. 

By deploying AMR, Tongji Hospital has achieved significant improvements in the daily operations of the inpatient department, and Zhijiang Campus has achieved significant improvements in the work efficiency of the operating room, laboratory, and pharmacy: see the figure below. 

As an ecological partner of MiR, a technician from Aixin Smart Healthcare said: "In the past, hospitals used manual methods to transport materials, which was not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also timeliness could not be guaranteed. After adopting AMR technology, medical materials can be transported autonomously, avoid obstacles intelligently, take elevators, and meet inter-floor and cross-floor transportation tasks, breaking through space limitations. At the same time, one robot is equivalent to four full-time delivery personnel, working 24 hours a day, greatly reducing the time of simple repetitive work of medical staff, allowing them to spend their time on higher-value work."