“Show, Don’t Tell”: How Robots Are Helping MultiCare Health System Achieve Value

Stop admiring the problem: Our nursing and clinical staff need additional capacity to care for our patients.

Can robots be one of many viable solutions? We are running a hospital, not an episode of the Jetsons. And yet, as IT continues to blur the lines between technology and the business, it’s actually a great idea to pursue something as novel as robots to help our staff, if it truly adds “value”.

So show me… don’t tell me.

What is value? In this use case, value is anything that utilizes resources most effectively to ensure that nurses and clinical staff are able to spend more time at the bedside and less time on non-value-added tasks.

While the solution we picked happens to be a robot (Moxi) that utilizes artificial intelligence to collaborate, navigate our facilities, and make deliveries, the actual value it provided in the first week of use can actually be quantified/shown:

• 648 deliveries completed
• 364 hours of activity that afforded our nurses and clinical staff 364 more hours of patient engagement and care
• 179 different nursing and clinical staff requesting tasks
• 320,000 steps saved

These are benchmark statistics for the first week of launch compared to others using this platform across the country. However, there are additional ‘soft’ benefits that are more difficult to quantify, such as:

• Increased partnership: When IT partners closely with our operational team to truly understand the pain points and provide solutions that don’t just look cool, but actually address issues, additional trust is earned. Thank you to Jennifer Graham, June Altaras, MN, NEA-BC, RN, Samantha Rosu, Bob Benoit, Greg Repetti, Alex Jackson and Donna Woelfel for your leadership in making this happen.
• Increased learning: We are a learning organization and have already identified other use cases that weren’t initially scoped for the pilot. Success is contagious, and other staff are already jumping in on other opportunities to enhance patient care and gain additional efficiencies.
• Increased patient experience: “Can I take a selfie with the robot?” As the patient approaches, Moxi’s eyes turn into hearts and the picture is posted to social media. When we delight our patients, those experiences create a positive sentiment about MultiCare Health System as we strive to cure when possible, but heal always.

Our reputation as an innovative health system continues to thrive and based on the lessons learned from week one, I anticipate that we will continue to leverage our Moxi into the future.

Onward!

This piece was written by Bradd Busick, SVP and CIO at MultiCare Health System. To view the original post, click here.