Relay Robotics has unveiled RelayRx, a new hospital delivery robot that is designed to address the nursing shortfall in healthcare.

The company highlighted that healthcare is experiencing a significant scarcity of registered nurses, with over 100,000 people having quit the workforce in the past two years.

This new robot offers a larger payload capacity, allowing it to transport various hospital items such as lab specimens, medications, and equipment.

With enhanced navigation capabilities and chain of custody security measures, RelayRx ensures safe travel within busy hospital spaces.

Relay Robotics chairman and CEO Michael O’Donnell said: “RelayRx for hospitals brings urgent relief to nurses, pharmacy techs, and hospital staff.

“They are our heroes today and we need to provide them all the tools that technology and innovation provide so they can spend more time with patients.”

The robot has already been deployed in more than 15 hospital systems worldwide and is used to make deliveries from pharmacies and labs to different departments within the facility.

Using proprietary elevator technology, RelayRx can autonomously navigate through the entire hospital, providing timely deliveries with an average delivery time of seven minutes.

Relay Robotics founder and chief technology officer Steve Cousins said: "We're proud of the technology and design advancements we've made in RelayRx to expand the delivery capacity and better serve hospital staff and their use cases like lab deliveries and chemotherapy from the pharmacy to the infusion centre.”