Clara Quakenbush, a medical assistant at Hancock Health’s Sue Ann Wortman Cancer Center in Indiana, used to make 10 to 15 trips a day carrying specimens to the hospital lab, according to an October 2025 news release from autonomous delivery company Arrive AI. She spent at least 90 minutes a day on those walks, per the release, and every minute of delivery was “a minute not spent with patients,” she said.
It’s a common problem. Even simple deliveries can pull clinical staff out of their units and away from patient care, delivery robot maker Relay Robotics said in a Sept. 30 news release. Moving empty beds between wards and storage areas uses up hours that skilled staff can’t spend on patients, German robot maker NEURA Robotics said, in its own Sept. 30 news release.
NEURA wants robots to move the beds. Its new healthcare unit, NEURA HealthTech, starts with an autonomous robot that moves empty beds between wards and floors on a single request. In its own estimate, NEURA projects that one robot handling about 20 moves a day can return more than 1,300 staff hours a year to patient care.
The bed robot handles empty beds and sterile goods only and does not carry patients, the company said. It turns on its own axis to clear tight corridors and keeps its safety functions running while it lifts a bed. Physical AI gives caregivers “back time for what only humans can do,” NEURA founder and CEO David Reger said.
NEURA tied the launch to staff shortages in European hospitals. The World Health Organization projects a shortfall of 11.1 million health workers globally by 2030.
Hospitals Measure Robots in Staff Hours
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles already counts its robots in hours. Diligent Robotics’ Moxi robots there have completed more than 40,000 deliveries, representing more than 16,000 hours of work, Omkar Kulkarni, the hospital’s chief innovation and transformation officer, said in an August news release. Moxi has completed more than 1.25 million deliveries across more than 25 hospitals, Serve Robotics, which agreed to acquire Diligent in January, said at the time.
Health Systems Move Robots Past Single Pilots
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HCA Florida JFK Hospital and Hancock Health are putting delivery robots on more routes. Two robots from San Jose, California-based Relay Robotics began work at HCA Florida JFK Hospital in Atlantis, Florida, the company said in its September news release. The robots carry lab specimens, pharmacy orders and telemetry equipment between departments. They also bring medications to areas the hospital’s pneumatic tube system doesn’t reach.
Hancock Health, in Greenfield, Indiana, handed Quakenbush’s specimen runs in October 2025 to robots from Arrive AI, a Nasdaq-listed delivery network company, and California-based Ottonomy. The system cuts the time care providers spend away from patients at least in half, Arrive AI said.
Hancock extended the network in May to its Parkway outpatient facility, moving specimens from its main draw center to the hospital lab. The robots drop specimens into secure lockers called Arrive Points, which hold them until staff are ready to retrieve them.
Robot Makers Sell Hospital Capacity by Subscription
NEURA will lease the bed robot through partners at a fixed monthly rate, the company said. The fee covers integration, operation, maintenance, software updates and 24/7 standby.
Serve Robotics is counting on recurring revenue, too. It expects each hospital that deploys Moxi to bring in $200,000 to $400,000 in annual sales, the company said when it agreed to buy Diligent. The sidewalk delivery company, backed by Nvidia and Uber, valued Diligent’s common stock at $29 million, TechCrunch reported.
Big names are backing the push. NEURA announced a Series C round of up to $1.4 billion in June from investors including Tether, Nvidia, Amazon, Qualcomm and Bosch, Bloomberg reported. Nvidia, which backs both NEURA and Serve, launched an open platform in March to train robots for hospital operating rooms, PYMNTS reported.
Diligent expects to double its hospital footprint every year and deploy thousands of robots by 2030, The Robot Report reported in October 2025, before the Serve deal.
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