LANCASTER, Pa. — Roxie and Rosie are the newest employees at Lancaster General Hospital.
“Staff in the hallways will say ‘Hi Roxie, Hi Rosie!'" said Jen Sheinberg, a clinical informatics specialist at Lancaster General Hospital. "They’ll stop for selfies.”
The two robots are receiving a warm welcome after being brought in last month to help out the nursing staff as part of a grant-funded pilot program.
"It's not about replacing nursing staff," said Tim Zellers, interim chief nursing officer at Lancaster General Health. "It's about focusing nursing staff at the bedside, interacting with patients, taking care of patients."
That means Roxie and Rosie are given tasks like picking up and dropping off supplies.
There’s always at least one robot roving the floors 24/7, but they don’t interact with patients at all.
“We love technology here, we’re huge implementers of anything technology so we were really excited to get them on board," said Sheinberg.
LGH isn't the first hospital in the country to use these robots, but it is the first in the Penn Medicine system.
So far, LGH staff say there have been no issues with the robots.
As technology continues to advance, hospital executives say you can either run from it or embrace it.
“It’s about how you bring it into the organization and socialize them with the team," Zellers explained. "There was a lot of work before we ever went live and put robots out there.”
At the end of the day, Zellers believes it’s all for the patient’s benefit.
“It improves patient outcomes, certainly [for] patients, their experience and how they perceive their stay is based on the face-to-face time they have with the staff taking care of them," he said.
Depending on how the pilot program goes, LGH will decide whether or not to bring more robots on board.
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