VA Hospitals to Deploy Mobile Robotics

The VA Mid-Atlantic Health Care Network is installing 21 TUGs — autonomous mobile robots — from Pittsburgh-based Aetheon Inc.

The robotics will be installed in eight medical centers, the VA Boston Healthcare System's Roxbury Campus, and the VA Healthcare System of Ohio's Chalmers P. Wylie Veterans Clinic in Columbus.

TUG is a hospital asset utilization solution that roams autonomously throughout hospitals, tracking and delivering goods and supplies from point-to-point. The company says that by assigning pharmacy, laboratory and materials management tasks to the TUGs, the hospitals will free up nursing staff.