Drug-delivery robots deployed at Israel’s largest hospital to cut chemo wait
Robots are to start whirring around Israel’s largest hospital, racing drugs from the pharmacy to wards the moment they are needed.
From next month, as soon as Sheba Medical Center’s oncology department needs chemotherapy drugs, which must be prepared in the pharmacy, small Israeli-produced robots will take them straight to the nurses who ordered them, and help save patients hours of waiting time.
They will shuttle the drugs to departments utilizing a network of maintenance tunnels that already exists under the hospital, and also use corridors, walkways and elevators alongside staff and patients.
“This is very exciting as we’re moving from needing humans to transport drugs to a solution that uses robots to increase speed and efficiency,” Ronen Loebstein, director of clinical pharmacology at Sheba, told The Times of Israel.
This is the first deployment of robots by the Israeli startup Seamless Vision, which hopes to now start selling internationally.
