Robot-transported parcel locker for medical equipment

For many patients, it has felt restrictive to only be able to pick up equipment within a certain timeframe, which was usually during working hours. At the Hans Christian Andersen Hospital for Children and Adolescents, it has sometimes felt inappropriate for parents to collect equipment in the evening hours, when they had to wait in the children's reception among sick children and their parents.

AIM

The project aimed to make it easier for patients and parents to pick up equipment by developing a robot-transported parcel locker that could stand in the hospital lobby.

RESULTS

The new mobile parcel lockers have proven to save patients time when collecting equipment, which previously could take up to 30 minutes with parking in the car park, walking to the outpatient clinic and waiting for service. With the new parcel lockers, it now takes around 7-8 minutes to pick up equipment in the lobby, where you do not have to wait for service. The collection time is also shortened, as short-term parking spaces have been assigned specifically for the purpose close to the entrance by the front hall. In addition, patients can pick up equipment in the lobby at any time of the day.

Patients have expressed great satisfaction with the parcel locker solution. In particular, patients at the Department of Cardiology, which in the autumn of 2023 implemented that patients should install diagnostic equipment themselves, have expressed satisfaction with the workflow because they can now get started with diagnostics and treatment more quickly.

The parcel locker solution is also to the advantage of the staff, as the reorganisation frees up approx. 13-14 nursing hours, when patients no longer have to go to the ward to collect. The parcel locker can be filled in the department and from there it will drive itself down into the lobby via the mobile robot base.

Several other departments at the hospital has expressed an interest in the parcel lockers, and we are currently in the process of expanding the project to include the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics.

PARTNERS

• Department of Cardiology, OUH
• Hans Christian Andersen Hospital for Children and Adolescents, OUH
• Facilities Management, OUH
• Centre for Innovative Medical Technology (CIMT)
• Nordic Robotics
• MiR

CCR's part of the project was to undertake the physical and software-related coupling of the mobile robot base from MiR and the locker from Nordic Robotics.

The project was part of the large innovation project Digital Vision - Integrating Care, which is anchored in CCR's sister centre CIMT.