Speci-Minder Autonomous Hospital Robot

Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 22:38 UTC by steve

Jeanne Dietsch of MobileRobots, Inc. sent us a news release about their Speci-Minder autonomous robot being used to help hospitals free up medical staff to attend patients. The robot takes care of the more mundane task of delivering patient samples to the lab. The robot can find its way to the correct lab even if the environment changes. If it finds one route blocked it can find an alternate route by itself. The first Speci-Minder robot, named Frances, is working at the Christiana Hospital in Delaware. Read on for the full text of the press release.

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, Feb 13, 2007, 9:00am

Speci-Minder Autonomous Robots Help Hospitals Speed Lab Results Robotic automated Frances delivers medical samples, frees staff to attend to patients

Lapeer, MI / Amherst, NH (2/13/2007) Autonomous robots will soon be appearing in hospitals around the US, according to CCS Robotics and MobileRobots Inc, jointly announcing Speci-Minder, a new hospital helper robot that assures patient samples arrive at the lab expeditiously.

Speci-Minder automatically adjusts to changing environments, without wires, lines, reflectors or other traditional guidance. It wends its way through hallway traffic finding alternate routes when blocked. It stops at the lab to collect patient samples. At the lab, staff unload samples, then press a button to send Speci-Minder on its way.

Speci-Minders first employer, Christiana Hospital near Wilmington, DE, named their robot Frances. Says Cheryl Katz, Administrative Director, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, We have a very large clinical lab, with specimens delivered to one location and then distributed. Before Frances, people were actually leaving their posts to take samples to various labs for processing. The robot has done very well helping our staff increase their efficiency and our department improve the timeliness of processing samples.

Says Tony Diodato, president of CCS Robotics, We understand hospitals need a system that both makes a good impression and gives staff prompt, reliable deliveries. Using MobileRobots amazing bases and our wireless access control technology, we were able to design a robotic solution that accomplishes both goals, and reduces hospital costs simultaneously.

Speci-Minder hospital delivery robots are built by CCS Robotics atop MobileRobots PatrolBot base with ARCSinside autonomous navigation and control system. With or without card-swipe lockbox, they are available from CCS Robotics, whose parent company, Cypress Computer Systems, Inc, has solved access and automation problems for over 20 years for customers including General Motors, Chrysler, Ford and EDS.

PatrolBot bases with ARCSinside are available from MobileRobots Inc. Founded in 1995, MobileRobots is a global leader in intelligent robots, robot control systems and robot software. It has sold thousands of robots around the world. Customers include: Amgen, BAE, Carnegie Mellon, Foster-Miller, Hitachi, Honda, Intel, John Deere, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, US Army and US Navy.

PHOTO: Upon Request
CONTACTS:
Tony Diodato, CCS Robotics, 1778 Imlay City Rd,
Lapeer, MI 48446 US; +1 (810) 441-6412;
tdiodato@mail.cyprx.com, www.cypressworld.com, www.speciminder.com

Donna Doran, MobileRobots Inc, 19 Columbia Drive, Amherst, NH 03031 US +1 603-881-7960 x104, pr@mobilerobots.com, Homepage: www.mobilerobots.com, Media Relations: www.MobileRobots.com/media.html