Posted April 07, 2017 17:18:52 A NSW aged care provider is trialling the use of a robot to transport meals, linen, waste and pharmaceutical goods. The RoboCart named Wendy is being used at Albion Park Rail Residential Care Home near Wollongong. Aged care provider Warrigal said it was exploring ways to relieve staff from repetitive processes such as pushing heavy trolleys, instead giving them more face-to-face time with residents. Strategic innovation and development executive leader Leanne Taylor said the trial was working well. "We've got the robot programmed so it knows its way from the kitchen to the various dining room areas, and the staff are then able to use an iPad to be able to dictate where the loads are to be taken to," Ms Taylor said. "The robot is able to transport anything that is bulky and heavy, so other examples are linen and other forms of products, and things like incontinence pads that often staff have to be able to move from the warehouse on site to the recipients of the product." Manufactured by Lamson, the robots are being used in health and aged care at sites in other states and for moving books in the basement of Canberra's National Library. Ms Taylor insists robots will not result in a reduction in staffing numbers. "I know a number of people have thought, oh, is this going to replace staff, is this a dangerous thing, what if it is charging down corridors or bumping into people or walls?" she said. "It has kind of like electronic whiskers that come out from the machine so they are able to sense where there are objects and people moving around. "Freeing staff up will enable the staff to have more interaction where it counts, which is enabling our customers to have the best lives possible." The NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association is embracing the use of robots in aged care. "There's no mistaking that robots are part of our future," assistant general secretary Judith Kiejda said. "Nursing attracts more back injuries than any other industry, if you speak to any nurse. I have a bad back courtesy of my career and I think that would be the case for most nurses. "So anything that is going to alleviate that I think we have to look at positively." Ms Kiedja said it would be a "bridge too far" to consider using robots for delivering care to residents. "When they are in aged care facilities they are looking for the familiar, and I just don't think that would be in the interest of delivering optimal care," she said. "This country doesn't look after our seniors well and I just think that we have to pay way more attention to how we look after them in residential aged care. "This particular project might because it will free up people." Warrigal will analyse the findings of the Albion Park Rail trial to decide if it should integrate the technology into its newest centre being developed at Shell Cove. Topics: robots-and-artificial-intelligence, aged-care, albion-park-rail-2527, wollongong-2500, nsw
A robotic cart called Wendy, manufactured by Lamson, is being deployed at care homes for the elderly in Australia. The robot is able to find its way around and transport heavy items, saving staff from having to push heavy trolleys loaded with linen, meals, waste or pharmaceutical products and enabling them to spend more time with residents. The robots are also being used to move books around the basement of Canberra's The NSW Nurses.