Meet Moxi, the newest robot assistants at CHOMP

MONTEREY, Calif. (KION-TV)- The Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula announced they will be having new staff members starting on March 15.

Meet Moxi who will be one of two robot assistants helping out doctors and nurses. The robots were designed by Diligent Robotics which is a robotics company based in Austin, Texas.

CHOMP is the first hospital in the Northern California region to have robot assistants at their hospital. The two Moxi robots was made possible thanks to grant funding from Montage Health Foundation. The robots will be on a year to year lease from Diligent Robotics.

"Moxi allows us to take away the tasks of having to run around to look for supplies," Deb Sober, Chief Nursing Officer said. "It's really getting back to why we became nurses, and that is to really take care of our patients."

Ashika Dutt has been a nurse at CHOMP since 2006. She is typically assigned to four patients a day and says that Moxi will allow her to concentrate on being at her patient's side.

"Our patients need us," Dutt said. "So any of that extra time that we're given goes directly to patient care."

Moxi will be using an array of sensors to map the hospital and have a mechanized arm to navigate multiple types of doors including those that need badge access.

The nurses will then place an order such as delivering lab samples and picking up medicines from the pharmacy.

Dr. Steven Packer who is the president and CEO of Montage Health says they have been studying on bringing new tech to the hospital.

"We will increasingly see where technology can help to extend and assist the work of our clinical workforce," Packer said. "And as we all know, there's a national shortage of health care providers across many, many disciplines, so the extent that we could use technology to assist them in their work, we're always interested in exploring that."

The robot assistants will be throughout the hospital and not on one specific floor.