At the Children’s Hospital Boston, food is being delivered with plenty of smiles by Aethon’s TUG robots, which are designed like a train, to the sick children.
As the robot train with six robots chugs through the hallways of the hospital, they entertain the children and deliver meals. Resembling like large toy trains, these TUGs have been developed by Aethon, a Pittsburgh based firm, which provides self guided mobile robots to hospitals. The train version of these robots has been implemented for the first time at the Children’s Hospital Boston.
A child undergoing leukemia treatment in San Francisco had wished to have medicines delivered by a robot and this is how the idea of developing robots that look like toy trains began. The local Make-a-Wish Foundation had passed on the information to Aethon and thus the train-like façade for the robot came about. The boy had a hand in creating the design for the train robot and this project helped Aethon to understand that robots could be used in many more ways. The project was a runaway success and this motivated Aethon to add the Train TUG to its catalog and make a donation each time the Make-A-Wish Foundation launches a branch anywhere in the nation.
According to Shawn Goldrick, who is the Director of Patient Support Services for Children’s Hospital Boston, the TUG robots not only looked cute and entertained the patients but also played an important role by delivering meals to the nursing floors. He revealed that the hospital’s Food Professionals are now able to stay on the floors to support and manage the patient’s needs, which give the nurses more time to provide hands on patient care. He was happy that this initiative could accomplish something functional while also delighting the patients at the same time.
Aldo Zini, CEO and the President of Aethon, was all praise for the visionary thinking of the Children’s Hospital Boston to make use of robots to support and boost their existing resources and thus facilitate clinical staff to concentrate on patient care. The TUGs give a great opportunity for combining the work of Aethon and Sodexho, a food service provider for the hospital.