AUSTIN, Texas — Hospitals across the country are dealing with nursing shortages. Austin-based robotic company Diligent Robotics is helping fill those gaps.

The company created Moxi, a robotic nursing assistant you could see next time you’re at a hospital. The robot delivers lab samples and medications, runs patients’ supplies and anything that does not directly involve patients.

“Now every hospital we’re talking to is very much considering how automation and technology can really come in and take actual work off of the plates of their staff, because they know that they don’t want their clinical staff to be doing anything that doesn’t have to do with patient care,” Dr. Andrea Thomaz, CEO and co-founder of Diligent Robotics, said.

Moxi’s primary purpose is to allow nurses to spend more time with patients by lightening their workload as Texas and the rest of the country face critical nursing shortages that increased during the pandemic.  

“Everyone’s getting burnt out, people are working more doubles, weekends and hours that they usually don’t work,” Matthew Mawby at StaffHealth.com said. 

Texas’ nursing shortage is projected to reach 60,000 by the end of the decade, according to Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies.

Dr. Thomaz says Moxi will only keep evolving, eventually doing more complicated tasks.  

“Some of the transport tasks that Moxi is taking on today are just scratching the surface,” Dr. Thomaz said.