Definition

care ro·botnoun

Earlier usage

1.A companion or social robot that offers company and emotional support, typically to older adults.

2.A logistics robot that carries supplies, medications, and samples through a care facility.

A robotic member of the care workforce. A care robot performs clinical work within a defined scope of practice: rounding, vitals capture, structured bedside check-ins, behavioral observation, documentation, and escalation. It works under the supervision of licensed clinical staff and interacts naturally with the patients in its care.

Plural, care robots. Field, care robotics.

Found in hospitals, post-acute and rehab, behavioral health, senior living, and the home.

follow one around the clock
nurse care robot
Why we are here

Healthcare needs more hands. Together, we are putting care robots to work, now.

Every care team knows the problem. More patients than hands, nurses stretched across too many rooms, hours when no one is checking in, and demand that grows every year in every setting. Hiring alone will not close that gap.

Care robots take on the repetitive, protocol-driven clinical work: rounding, measuring, checking in, documenting, and escalating, around the clock. They work inside a defined scope, under the supervision of licensed staff, as members of the care workforce. That gives nurses and care teams time back for judgment, hands-on care, and the people in front of them.

Every care robot also makes the next one better. More robots on more units means denser, more reliable data on every patient, so changes are caught earlier and outcomes improve. And because care robots learn from each other across sites, what one unit teaches them improves care on every unit.

This is already happening. Care robots are working alongside care teams today, starting in skilled nursing, with hospitals, rehab, behavioral health, and the home next.

Making it the norm takes all of us: the operators who run hospitals, clinics, and care facilities, the clinicians who set the standard of care, the engineers who build the robots, the researchers who test them, and the investors who fund the work. So we define the role in public, show the work as it happens, and bring the people doing it to one table at Robots That Care.

Around the clock

Around the clock with a care robot

A few of the jobs care robots take on, at any hour.

Three generations

Three generations of robots in care

Robots have worked in care settings for two decades. Clinical work arrived with the third generation.

Ready for the floor

What made care robots ready for the floor

A defined role on the care team, technology that can do the work, and a workforce that needs the help.

  1. Scope of practice

    Every role on a care team has a scope of practice. Care robots have one too.

    A nursing assistant works under delegation from a nurse. A care robot works the same way. Its scope sets out what it performs on its own, who supervises that work, and what stays with people.

    Scope of practiceCR-0001

    Care robot

    Member of the care workforce
    Hospital, post-acute, and home

    Performs

    • Rounding and structured bedside check-ins
    • Contactless heart rate and respiratory rate capture
    • Natural conversation with patients, in their own language
    • Behavioral and mobility observation
    • Documentation to the EHR
    • Escalation to licensed staff
  2. Supervision

    Supervised by the nurse in charge.

    Every escalation goes to licensed staff, and every clinical decision stays with them.

    Scope of practicereverse

    Supervised by

    Licensed nursing staff

    Stays human

    • Clinical judgment
    • Diagnosis and treatment decisions
    • Hands-on care
    • The relationships at the center of care
    Supervising RN
  3. Technology

    What changed in the technology

    Conversation became natural.

    Patients talk with a robot the way they talk with a person, in their own language.

    Sensing became clinical.

    Heart rate and respiratory rate can be measured from across the room, with FDA clearance.

    Records connect.

    Care robots document directly into the EHR the care team already uses.

  4. Workforce

    What changed in the workforce

    9.6%

    of registered nurse positions in U.S. hospitals are vacant.

    8%

    projected national shortage of registered nurses in 2028, across every care setting.

Robots That Care

Robots That Care

Take a seat at the table.

A quarterly gathering in New York for the people bringing care robots into the healthcare workforce. We brainstorm, promote the idea, find new use cases, and make the connections to build this at scale. Every seat is filled on purpose, so operators, clinicians, roboticists, researchers, and investors are all in the room.

Join the community

Members hear first about every quarterly gathering and get the brief from each one.

Next gathering Brooklyn, NY, Wednesday, October 21