St. Anthony’s Hospital hires two robots to help nurses with labs and prescription pickups

Robots help nurses at St. Anthony's Hospital

There are two new employees at St. Anthony?s Hospital in St. Petersburg. Kailey Tracy reports.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - There are two new employees at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.

They don’t take any days off, work 24/7 and their colleagues call them their versions of "R2-D2." The hospital recently hired two robots that help nurses pick up and deliver labs and prescriptions, letting them spend more time with their patients.

READ: First AI-powered robotic massage in Tampa offers unique experience

Big picture view:

"Our nursing teams and our pharmacy teams are some of our busiest people, and we wanted to find a way to save them minutes each hour, and we knew that could add up to hours each week for our team members," Craig Anderson, BayCare’s vice president of innovation, said. "Through the use of Beaker and Hygiea, we have saved thousands of hours for our nurses and our pharmacy teams."

The robots are affectionately named "Beaker" and "Hygeia." 

"We even ran a contest here so that the team could name each one of the robots," Anderson said. "Beaker, they're the lab, beakers, it just fits right there. Hygeia is the Greek goddess of health, and that just fit exactly for what pharmacy does for our hospital."

MORE: More parents support screen time limits for kids, study shows as new Florida law takes effect

They’re programmed to navigate through the halls and are able to open doors, even secure ones. The robots can call elevators too. Authorized team members with badge access help them out when they get to their destination, loading in or taking out the delivery from the robots’ cargo space.

What they're saying:

"One of the things we really love about him is that he allows us to be bedside," Kristen Lefkimiotis, nurse manager of CVICU and dialysis, said. "By us, I really mean my team. They're the ones doing the hard work. They get to spend more time with our patients, their families, visitors, providing care, calming fears. The team loves him. They get very festive with him, especially Halloween, they dressed him up."

Anderson said he was inspired seeing a similar robot delivering items to guests at a Miami hotel.

"I thought that this could be very similar to what we do in a hospital. We're in a very busy environment, and we want to serve our guests the best we can," he said.

READ: Americans using AI to diagnose health issues, study finds

They reached out to the company, designed Beaker’s uniform, complete with scrubs and a stethoscope, and he got to work. He did such a good job, they hired Hygeia not long after.

Dig deeper:

St. Anthony’s Hospital Foundation donated $119,000 for Beaker, which helps with labs.

"Typically, the pharmacy technicians will deliver sometimes a pharmacist, but if you have competing demands all at the same time, it makes it really hard to be everywhere at once, so having Hygeia, Beaker's bestie, is really helpful," Lefkimiotis said.

Maybe the cutest part other than their nametags? The duo does a dance after making a delivery.