Oswego Health and Rehab pilots robot

Now, Mission Health has decided to explore the potential for a robot to allow more time for staff in its nursing homes to interact one-on-one with residents and not have to leave them alone while running to grab things.

Mission Health is preparing to pilot the use of Bear Robotics Servi hospitality robots at four of its facilities in the United States. Oswego Health and Rehab is one of them and received a robot a little over two weeks ago.

“We are the only one in Kansas that is testing,” administrator Sharla Hopper said, as she tapped in a location inside the facility on the robot’s touch screen. “We are still learning how to use it.” The robot they named Rosie rolled from its docking station as it would from the kitchen at meal times, holding a tray with a drink and brownie. It rolled to the dining room to the precise table Hopper had designated where resident Charlotte Frazier sat.

“Have a good one. Enjoy,” Rosie said after stopping before Frazier, who smiled as she looked over the approximate 3-foot-tall robot.

“I was very excited,” Frazier said of first seeing Rosie in the facility. She said her family was visiting the day Rosie arrived and got to see the robot as well. “It’s very fascinating just to sit and watch it. It’s something extra that we enjoy. It’s different.”

The robot appears to be little more than a round stand on wheels with two shelves above it to hold trays or other items. Inside is a computerized brain that Hopper said is programmed to go anywhere in the building and deliver whatever messages staff would like along with food or other items.

“The company sent someone, Evan, to come and program it. He took a map of the facility and it runs on like GPS,” Hopper said.

The robot is equipped with a camera and sensors, so if it does come near people or objects in its path, it senses them, stops and adjusts its course.

Hopper punched a couple of other buttons on the screen and the robot rolled to another spot near the dining room, where it sang “happy birthday” to a resident who smiled, obviously already accustomed to the staff testing out that aspect of the robot’s capabilities.

While familiarizing themselves with the robot, Hopper said the staff is initially using the robot to bring four plates of food at a time from the kitchen to the dining room tables, allowing the dietary aides, certified nursing assistants or other staff to remain at the table with residents rather than running back and forth to the kitchen to get trays. Once the robot arrives, the staff can remove the plates and push a button to send the robot back to the kitchen. If something else is needed, such as a forgotten fork, the message can be sent to the kitchen with the robot and the item retrieved and delivered.

One thing the staff quickly discovered: “It has kind of made us slow down a little bit and spend more time with residents. In life in general, we sometimes get in a hurry. Lunchtime is a social event and staff can now sit at the tables with residents and chat while Rosie brings them their food or drinks or whatever,” Hopper said. “I want lunch and dinner here to be like a restaurant experience.”

If residents eat in their room, Hopper said staff could stay in the room and help the residents get dressed and brush their hair while Rosie brings their food trays from the kitchen.

“I thought it was pretty cool,” certified nursing/medication assistant Kelsey Durflinger said of first seeing the robot. “It’s something different, something new, something that might be helpful. I thought residents would get a big kick out of it.

“There are a few things to work out still, but I think it is working really well. For our kitchen staff, it has really helped. It is helpful to us to be able to relay what we need from the kitchen so we don’t actually have to go in there and prepare it or get it and come back. We get to stay with the residents.”

Staff is only beginning to consider the ways the robot could help better serve residents. For example, the robot could go from the laundry room to the shower and deliver towels so staff doesn’t have to leave a resident alone or be concerned about having someone else go get one for them. A tablet could be sent to a room to allow someone to FaceTime, or check on someone if staff is busy with other residents. A tablet that mirrors the robot’s touch screen allows the charge nurse to direct the robot from anywhere.

“We just haven’t discovered everything it can do, but it’s meant to enhance human interaction not replace,” Hopper said. “I’m just seeing staff spend more time with residents. Staff work 12-hour shifts and if this is even going to save one trip down the hall, or one trip back to the kitchen, that’s helpful. It helps change the culture. … Staff like it, and residents are enjoying it, and I didn’t anticipate that.”

The other facilities testing the robots are in Georgia, Tennessee and Iowa. Hopper said one reason Oswego was chosen is that it is smaller (it’s only a 40-bed facility). Mission Health is leasing the robots not buying them for now. Hopper said the greatest cost with leasing is the initial programming and training of staff at each facility. In the future, any robot updates can be done remotely.

Paris Girginis, Mission Health vice president of innovation, was in Tennessee last week getting ready to roll out the robot there, and he said, “the excitement is just off the scale.”

“Thinking forward, artificial intelligence is the way of the future,” Girginis said. “These robots can assist them in ways we can’t even imagine yet. We are finding out as we are going along and administrators are finding new ways to use these robots to help the staff make the best use of their time. Hopefully, one day we will be the prime company for people to come and work for because we can provide the best care and provide our staff with assistance no one else does. This is the start.

“Hopefully we will roll out this project in all of our facilities. Going forward I think we are going to find more and more ways that we never thought of to use this.”