Rovex is conducting the primary pilot of its hospital transportation system in Florida. Supply: Rovex
Final month, I attended eMerge Americas hosted by Melissa Medina in Miami. The convention showcased South Florida’s burgeoning innovation engine, with startups selling groundbreaking tech in healthcare, protection, AI, and {hardware}.
An equally spectacular plenum of audio system included family name-brand CEOs, generals, influencers, and even the president’s son. Clearly, the nexus of innovation is starting to shift away from the Northern coasts right down to the (tax-free) Solar Belt.
Strolling the ground, I sought out robotic corporations within the eMerge alligator alley. Amid the combo of drone and autonomous autos, Rovex Applied sciences stood out with its autonomous hospital mattress. The startup was the brainchild of emergency room physician David Crabb. He had been charged with overseeing his division, tackling bottlenecks in transferring sufferers by the hospital system.
One of the crucial obvious examples of waste was the size of time it took for sufferers to be seen by the imaging employees. The entrepreneur mentioned he found that it took “over an hour to get 200 yards down the corridor.” This led to excessive charges of affected person dissatisfaction, income loss, and elevated worker-compensation claims.
“Transporters have a extremely powerful job,” defined Dr. Crabb. “They’ve one of many highest harm charges of any job within the U.S., and a really excessive turnover at some establishments. They depart in about six months, 100% turnover in a single 12 months.”
“So I began in search of methods we might transfer sufferers autonomously,” he mentioned. “After which we settled on having one thing that they’ll seize onto — stretchers, wheelchairs, beds, and so on. — and tow them alongside safely down the corridor to be able to pace the method up of caring for the affected person and get the employees again to the bedside having the ability to care for sufferers hands-on, fairly than simply pushing stretchers and beds round. You’ll all the time want a human contact in sure areas, particularly with sufferers who’re altered or anxious round issues like automation.”
Rovex add autonomous mobility by towing
Rovex has developed a autonomous patient-transportation system that works with present beds and gurneys. It has a strong impediment avoidance to securely navigate down hallways, however as Dr. Crabb shared, the robotic’s mental property is its towing {hardware}.
David Crabb, M.D., founder and CEO of Rovex, with the corporate’s system at Morton Plant Hospital. Supply: Rovex
“One of many core items that we’ve developed in-house is round how we seize and combine with caster wheels, free-spinning wheels,” he mentioned. “We’ve gone by 4 to 5 totally different iterations of methods to safely and effectively seize them with good management, shortly, and keep good management over the stretchers, wheelchairs, or beds as we transfer.”
Crabb famous that the information layer might ultimately be his strongest asset. “The information might be the most important alternative in that area,” he mentioned. “There are solely so many [robots] on the market transferring round autonomously, so we’re persevering with to construct our algorithms to do this safely.”
“Social interplay with folks as they’re going by will be chaotic,” Crabb acknowledged. “Healthcare staff have an limitless listing of wants. So I’d say the information is a extremely necessary half.”
“I believe the No. 1 consideration if you’re transferring round is that it is a weak inhabitants,” mentioned the physician. “You need to do it safely. You possibly can’t transfer shortly. You need to make certain the affected person is in management and nonetheless feels answerable for what’s occurring, so give them that management to verify they really feel protected.”
“As a clinician, our No. 1 precedence is affected person security first, do no hurt,” asserted Crabb. “It’s my very own ethos as a doctor, so the very first thing we set up is an emergency cease button for the robotic, in addition to an emergency launch to ensure you can seize it and transfer it out of the way in which as simply as potential.”
BayCare Well being System assessments transport robotic
The Robotic Report reported final month that Rovex obtained a serious endorsement when BayCare Well being System introduced a pilot program to check its robots in real-world settings at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Fla. The hospital plans a phased program to guage how the startup’s methods will transfer by the ability and combine with present workflows. Early testing is targeted on navigation fairly than affected person motion.
“Delivering higher affected person care requires innovation throughout each side of hospital operations,” mentioned Craig Anderson, vice chairman of innovation at BayCare. His staff indicated that the aim of the pilot might be to guage whether or not Rovex will be scaled throughout its 16 amenities in West Central Florida to extend effectivity and keep security.
“What’s most compelling about this pilot is the prospect to carefully consider and study,” mentioned Dr. Chris Bucciarelli, BayCare’s chief medical officer for ambulatory companies. “By learning how robotics might help affected person transport in an actual hospital surroundings, we are able to higher perceive methods to design care methods that help each sufferers and employees.”
The Rovex robotic shouldn’t be but transporting sufferers throughout the pilot at BayCare’s facility. Supply: Rovex
Different innovators tackle hospital motion
Whereas Rovex has developed a novel click-and-tow platform, it’s not the primary firm to automate affected person transport.
At CES 2025, MOVED unveiled “an autonomous driving mattress designed to move surgical sufferers effectively through devoted elevators, making certain privateness and cleanliness.” Whereas this futuristic kind issue caught loads of consideration in Las Vegas, there was little information from its South Korean creator, OGGMA, since then.
The MOVED autonomous driving hospital mattress was a CES 2025 Digital Well being honoree. Supply: Shopper Expertise Affiliation
ReviMo, a part of the fourth cohort within the MassRobotics Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst Program, has developed Niko, a lifting system for folks with mobility points. In a position Improvements‘ ALTA routinely transfers sufferers from hospital beds to gurneys with out ergonomic pressure on hospital personnel.
As well as, robots are already working in hospital hallways as they supply logistical help for prescription drugs, gear, and linens. These embody methods from Aethon, Relay Robotics, and Diligent Robotics (which was acquired by Serve Robotics in January).
Editor’s notice: The Robotics Summit & Expo will embody a session on hospital logistics with Aethon, Rovex, and SKA Robotics. MassRobotics may also introduce startups in its Healthcare Startup Showcase. Register now to attend subsequent week’s occasion in Boston.
Moby is a ‘bubble on wheels’
The broader alternative in affected person transport was additional underscored this previous 12 months at Countless Frontier Labs, the place I met Janis Münch, CEO of Sphaira and the inventor of Moby, a cell protecting transportation system full with air filtration.
“Medical isolation is both you’re immunocompromised or extremely infectious,” he defined. “Now, what we did was develop a cell protecting bubble on wheels. It’s a medical system in Europe.”
“We’re present process FDA approval, and this has been in use for 1.5 years at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, arguably essentially the most well-known European hospital,” added Münch. “We are actually doing a scientific examine with Stanford Youngsters’s Hospital.”
Moby is in use in Germany for most cancers sufferers at Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Supply: Sphaira
Sphaira develops shuttles for the Mayo Clinic
Münch continued to stipulate his long-term plan to create fleets of autonomous affected person and other people movers, constructing on Moby’s success. In October 2025, Sphaira introduced a growth settlement with the Mayo Clinic for autonomous affected person shuttles.
“So the thought is a pod, a one-person shuttle, elaborated Münch. “It’s an autonomous wheelchair with passive safety. We map the constructing beforehand to create a digital twin, after which it drives by the constructing, transferring in each course.”
After I requested Münch why he selected to deal with an autonomous chair fairly than a mattress or gurney, the German entrepreneur replied, “It’s really been extra manageable, as a result of we’re solely getting into the principle hallways proper now, however if you begin fascinated by doing the autonomous mattress, we would want an even bigger associate.”
“A Stryker or [another big partner] can be great at one level, as soon as our robotic infrastructure layer is put in. You need to get into each room, and it is a a lot larger effort,” he added. “So we’ve already put loads of thought into this. We haven’t provide you with the proper answer but, however our first step is the elements, which brings us into the hospitals, so we’re already there, after which we are able to consider every kind of use circumstances, after which increase our infrastructure.”
A rendering of the Autopod affected person shuttle. Supply: Sphaira
Comply with the unit prices
All of the founders within the area boasted of price financial savings, elevated revenues from larger hospital effectivity, and improved affected person outcomes. Nonetheless, Sphaira’s chief government acknowledged it greatest:
“A mean affected person transporter, relying on the area, is someplace round $43,000 a 12 months. And if you take a look at how affected person transport works, and also you analyze it, you all the time have a peak throughout the day. Most are within the morning, with some round midday, relying on how their operations work.”
“Now these peaks are staffed with two or three shifts of affected person transporters. Which means certainly one of our models can exchange two to 3 affected person transporters, which actually places us in a totally totally different league from a unit perspective.”
“Most [hospital] robots are supportive, rising effectivity by 5%, 10%, or 15%, whereas we’re rising effectivity by 200 to 300%. That’s actually the core distinction right here, and that’s additionally why it’s a simple sale,” mentioned Münch.
Sphaira’s autonomous affected person shuttles navigate hospital hallways. Credit score Sphaira
