Where does a 600-pound courier sit while waiting for an elevator?
If you answered "Anywhere she wants!," well, you just don't know Kate.Kate, short for Medi-Kate, is a robot assigned to transport medication and other supplies at the VA Medical Center - Oakland. Programmed to wait as unobtrusively as possible, Kate doesn't join the crowd in front of the elevator doors. She rests about 15 feet away, just around the corner from the elevator bank.
Kate is one of three robots the hospital leases from HelpMate Robotics Inc. of Danbury, Conn. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has had one robot from the same company for about a year and a half.
The VA is not bashful about leading the charge into the 21st century.
"We are doing this to show people that the VA is capable of the same level of technology as are the private hospitals," said Jim Dudly, a member of the three-person engineering team assigned parenting responsibilities for the robots.
"HelpMates" are programmed to carry out various delivery duties. They can even go from floor to floor by controlling the elevators with radio signals. Made of steel and fiberglass, the 5-foot-tall robots can carry about 100 pounds at a blazing speed of 2 feet per second - well, a blazing speed for something weighing 600 pounds. Factory representatives say much of that weight comes from lugging around the two 24-volt batteries that supply the power.
Kate, or Katie, as she's known by hospital staff, navigates the network of floors and hallways in the hospital by consulting a map stored in her computer. She can speak when necessary, saying things such as: "I am about to move. Please stand clear" and "Thank you."
She works a 12-hour shift delivering medicines, then takes a break for 12 hours. A girl has to recharge her batteries sometime.
Should the VA ever need the robots to work 24 hours a day, the hospital could purchase spare battery packs and make exchanges every 12 hours.
The robots have proved popular with most VA employees, who chose their names in a contest. The robot that works in the pathology and laboratory section became Pathfinder, and the supply, processing and distribution section's robot became SPD-2, as in R2D2 of "Star Wars" fame.
Karen Miller of Glenshaw, an employee of the VA's emerging care center, said Medi-Kate was "as cute as can be." Katie wears a bow on her antenna, which protrudes from her top like a single strand of hair.
Mary Pat Acquaviva, a physician assistant, was skeptical at first but now is a robot booster.
"I thought that they were going to get stuck and people were going to fall and get hurt. But they stop when anyone is around and they know how to get around things. They work fine," she said.
But the robots don't win raves from Christine Smith, president of the union that represents most hospital employees. She said Local 2028 of the American Federation of Government Employees sees the robots as another threat to the American worker.
"What they have done is eliminated an employee with each robot. You now have robots doing the work of people," she said.
Not so, said Donald Doering, associate chief of nursing services.
"You now have less collateral duties for pharmacy staff in delivering medications. We're getting a quicker turnaround time from the pharmacy as far as processing of prescriptions and related supplies. This has been a very definite plus," he said.
Smith also believes the robots are a danger to patients and employees.
"My husband almost got run down. Had he not moved, he would have been run down," she said. "There are too many people walking these hallways on canes and crutches. Something is going to happen. It may not have happened yet, but it's going to happen."
During the robots' first four months of service, no accidents have been reported, according to Doering, a member of the hospital's safety committee.
Diane Tracker, a pharmacist and a regular user of the delivery robots, believes they are safe.
"Every morning we test them for 15 minutes. That includes tests of their sensors and bumpers. During training, I threw all kinds of things in front of it. I even stuck my leg in front of it. It always stopped," she said.
UPMC's robot, named Romeo by the staff, has worked out well, said Patrick Flaherty, the hospital's systems coordinator with clinical support services.
"We have had no safety problems except for people jumping on Romeo's bumper and hitching rides. The only injury occurred to Romeo. The hitchhikers bent his bumper," he said.
That sort of overfamiliarity is common where robots are in use, according to Gay Engelberger, director of marketing for HelpMateRobotics.
"We give full credit to R2D2 and C3PO (the robots in the movie "Star Wars") for a society that is so robot-friendly," Engelberger said.
Since the first prototype was installed in a hospital in 1989, 92 hospitals in North America, Europe and Asia have begun using HelpMate robots, Engelberger said.
In case you're interested in owning your own delivery robot, HelpMate will sell you one for $92,000 to $102,000 or rent you one for $5.50 to $7 per hour. The price varies according to usage and programming difficulties.
Hospital officials said patients had generally responded well to robots roaming the hallways. But William Hawk, a VA patient from Wheeling, W.Va., was unimpressed with Katie and her co-horts.
"It's another example of a waste of government money." he said.