Copley Health Center’s first ever robot, Eva, brings food and snacks to residents and delivers stress relief for the facility’s aides and nurses.
Front office assistant Trinity Ritenour said that since Eva’s introduction, the mobile robot has transformed the CommuniCare skilled nursing facility’s ability to transport items like food or packages to and from residents’ rooms.
“Before we had the robot, it was pretty stressful,” Ritenour said. “A lot of residents talk to [Eva] like she’s a person. It brings stuff to them faster. It’s a really helpful tool.”
Eva is one of a pair of robots — the other is named Rosie — featured in a recent Akron Beacon Journal article about a grant program that is bringing the models to senior living and care facilities in Ohio.
The robots were sent, respectively, to Copley Health Center, in Copley, and the Village of St. Edward in Fairlawn, to address staffing shortages and reduce the burden of necessary tasks that preoccupied staff members “don’t really want to do,” Ritenour said.
That includes delivery tasks such as taking DoorDash orders or Amazon packages to residents’ rooms, or sending back meal trays and items to the facility’s kitchen.
Many robotics companies are partnering with senior living and care operators or initiating pilot programs to bring their models into resident communities and facilities. Most of those robots, however, are meant to help address loneliness or tackle residents’ social concerns.
The idea of bolstering staff with robots for tasks such as cleaning and food delivery potentially is less controversial. Whereas many are concerned that robots will replace human interactions in healthcare settings, both residents and staff seem to embrace the idea of models, such as Eva and Rosie, that fill in routine gaps unrelated to the actual care of residents.
The robots each cost $12,000 and were funded through a Community Development Block Grant from the local government in Summit County, Ohio, and the Direction Home agency, which serves older people and those with disabilities in the greater Akron-Canton region.
