Seelands University Hospital is one of the youngest and most modern university hospitals in Denmark. Every year, it treats around 22,000 patients in various medical specialties. It is also one of the most important teaching hospitals in the region. The Danish authorities want to develop the clinic into a flagship project by 2022. As a medical competence center, it is expected to triple in size and care for many times more patients: 400,000 outpatients and 90,000 inpatients are expected every year - an enormous increase that will also pose challenges for the administration in terms of coordinating internal care.

While the number of patients being cared for is growing, walking distances are also increasing due to the increase in space. This particularly affects the nursing staff, who are already working to capacity with their daily work with patients. It quickly became clear to those responsible that a change was needed to make processes more efficient. "We need to rethink things if we want to optimize the current state of logistics in the hospital and develop a sustainable solution," explains Lilian Hansen, Project Manager at Seelands Hospital. With this in mind, the hospital management initiated a pilot project in June 2018 to test the use of mobile robots in day-to-day hospital operations.

In the search for a suitable provider, the decision was quickly made in favor of technology from Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR). "MiR offers the most advanced solutions for our industry," explains Johnny Lyngård Petersen, Operations Manager at Seelands Hospital. "The MiR robots meet our needs exactly. No special changes to the infrastructure were required for their implementation, as they navigate without rails or magnetic strips - a big plus for us." This autonomous maneuverability also saves time and costs during integration. Lyngård Petersen's confidence in Mobile Industrial Robots was also based on the fact that MiR's robots have already been used successfully in other Danish hospitals in recent years.

At the heart of the project at Seeland University Hospital is a MiR100, which the hospital staff have christened "Optimus". It supplies five specialist departments with sterile disposable items such as syringes, infusion needles and plasters. It covers a distance of ten kilometers every week. Thanks to its sensor technology and safety algorithms, it moves autonomously and safely through the corridors. As a result, it can also travel in the immediate vicinity of people without any risk whatsoever.

No changes to the infrastructure were necessary during implementation,
as the robots navigate without rails or magnetic strips.

At the heart of the project is a MiR100, which supplies five specialist departments with sterile disposables such as syringes, infusion needles and plasters. © MiR

Added to this is the robot's reliable adaptability thanks to its various interfaces, which give it a major advantage in the fast-paced everyday life of hospitals. For example, MiR robots can operate elevator systems via WLAN and thus enter and exit them independently or open electric doors and gates. Johnny Lyngård Petersen really appreciates these features: "The robot can take the elevator, use the corridors side by side with staff and patients, avoid obstacles and even open doors independently."

Before being used for the first time, each robot travels through its future operating environment once and maps it. It can then move autonomously and always calculate the fastest route to its destination. Flexible add-on modules allow MiR robots to be optimally equipped for their respective tasks. The automation solution used in Køge consists of four parts: The mobile robot with its eponymous payload capacity of 100 kilograms serves as the base. An add-on module is installed on its loading area, onto which a mobile transport trolley can be coupled. A cabinet is mounted on this, which the staff can seal for the transportation of sterile goods.

It is loaded with disposable items and sterile instruments by employees from the central sterile supplies department. The robot then travels to the various departments one after the other, where service assistants remove the required material. MiR technology thus ensures that the departments are always supplied with the right sterile supplies. This minimizes waiting times, prevents bottlenecks and leads to leaner transport processes, allowing the hospital to reduce its stocks and save on expensive storage space.

Both patients and staff benefit from the improved service. Before Optimus started working in Seeland, they delivered the sterile goods by hand every week. They are now happy to be able to give up this physically strenuous, monotonous task. "Thanks to MiR's technology, the service assistants can now devote themselves to 'warmer tasks' such as patient care," explains Johnny Lyngård Petersen.

The robot travels through the various departments one after the other,
so that everyone is always accurately supplied with sterile goods.