Hospital Robots Are Helping Combat a Wave of Nurse Burnout

Since February, the nurses at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia have had an extra assistant on their shifts: Moxi, a nearly six-foot tall robot that ferries medication, supplies, lab samples, and personal items through the halls, from floor to floor. After two years of battling Covid-19 and related burnout, it's been a welcome relief. "There's two levels of burnout: There's'we're short this weekend' burnout, and then there's pandemic burnout, which our care teams are experiencing right now," says Abigail Hamilton, a former ICU and emergency room nurse that manages nursing staff support programs at the hospital. Moxi is one of several specialized delivery robots that has been developed in recent years to ease the strain on health care workers. Even before the pandemic, nearly half of US nurses felt that their workplace lacked adequate work-life balance.