Hospital Service Robotics Market Size:
The hospital service robotics market is predicted to witness steady growth during the projected period.
Hospital Service Robotics Market Key Highlights:
- Hospitals across North America and Europe are rapidly adopting service robots for logistics and disinfection to ease staff workload and improve operational efficiency.
- Asia-Pacific is seeing a rise in government-backed deployments and innovations like delivery and surgical-assist robots to meet growing patient care demands.
Hospital Service Robotics Market Trends:
The market for hospital service robots will continue to expand as systems become even more widespread in healthcare and hospitals continue to shape actual ways to alleviate patient capacity and remove strain from hospital clinics and staff while cleaning more safely. The vast chasm between robots as supplementary top-down approached tools and robots being a practical and reliable part of your team is closing. The wide availability and cost advantage of robots becoming easier to operate will allow widespread diffusion, beginning with large hospitals and hospital systems. Robots are multi-faceted and are being designed to help improve shifts from the ground logistics to patient contact, create efficiencies, and reduce the burden on clinical staff. The market will steadily expand as hospital systems test and implement service robots that make processes safer and more productive without increasing complexity in their operating models.
Hospital Service Robotics Market Overview
| Report Metric |
Details |
| Study Period |
2021 to 2031 |
| Historical Data |
2021 to 2024 |
| Base Year |
2025 |
| Forecast Period |
2026 – 2031 |
& Scope:
The hospital service robotics market is segmented by:
- Robot Function: The market is segmented into delivery and logistics robots, disinfection and sterilisation robots, patient transport robots, and telepresence robots. Service robots such as Diligent Robotics' Moxi and Panasonic's HOSPI operate autonomously in hospitals to move medications, lab specimens, and supplies back and forth between wards. At Lancaster General Hospital, two Moxi robots named "Roxy" and "Rosie" do supply pickups and drop-offs, which enables nurses to do less walking, and the systems help save hundreds of minutes from hundreds of nurses everyday flow and delivery of supplies. This improved workflow and patient care.
- Application: The market is segmented into medication delivery, meal and service delivery, room cleaning, sample transport, and virtual patient rounds. For example, at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Kentucky, autonomous robots deliver medications from the main pharmacy to units at a neighbouring hospital. The pharmacy technician loads the robot, and it completes multiple deliveries to bedsides completely autonomously, which frees the pharmacy staff and nursing staff from making the rounds and can significantly reduce delivery time.
- End user: The market is segmented into hospitals, outpatient clinics, long-term care facilities, and diagnostic centres. Telepresence robots are being more frequently used in long-term care (LTC) homes to connect people living with dementia or impaired mobility to remote family and clinicians. Research indicates that LTC staff found these devices easy to use and useful for sustaining social connection, though training and privacy concerns were highlighted as important to success.
- Region: North America have a strong pharmaceutical base, coupled with an advanced automation ecosystem, making robotics a permanent fixture in pharmaceutical production. Our activity and investment landscape continues to combine responsible development across technology coverages, including robotics and contextual support from regulators, making it a leading region for expected robotics adoption.
Top Trends Shaping the Hospital Service Robotics Market:
- Robots are assisting staff with routine logistics.
- Hospitals are adopting autonomous mobile robots such as Diligent Robotics' Moxi and Panasonic's HOSPI for moving supplies, lab specimens, and meals. These robots can minimise the amount of time staff spend walking and improve internal workflows to assist daily operations.
- Disinfection robots are gaining traction post-pandemic.
- UV-emitting robots (such as UVD Robots by Blue Ocean Robotics) for sterilising patient rooms and busy areas are gaining a lot of momentum in hospitals. Outcomes indicate faster turnover times for patient care and better microbial control, highlighting trust in the robotic disinfection systems for their role in infection prevention.
Hospital Service Robotics Market Growth Drivers vs. Challenges:
Drivers:
- Labour pressure and healthcare staff shortages: Hospitals around the world are grappling with staffing shortages, particularly in nursing and staff support roles. This is where service robots are providing invaluable, and in some cases permanent, support. For instance, pharmacy robots and logistics robots that work 24 hours a day allow nursing staff to spend more of their time focused on direct patient care. With the continued shortages of healthcare staff and the expectation of further shortages in the future, hospitals are starting to see the value of robotics in addressing burnout and delays in work processes. In this regard, robotics growth in healthcare is occurring where there is a clear need for speed and consistency, given limited human resources, particularly when considering entry to large healthcare organisations.
- Focus on infection control and patient safety: Cost-effective robots that disinfect rooms and clean patient areas are quickly evolving into the new normal for modern hospitals. In the wake of COVID-19, healthcare providers adapted infection prevention methods in their health facilities. The robots that disinfect rooms and clean patient areas proactively mitigate microbial load and protect cleaning staff from potential exposure. Clinical studies have confirmed that UV-cleaning robots have lowered rates of hospital-acquired infections by more than 30% across a continuum of providers. Growing regulatory pressures of hygiene and current hospital accreditation requirements are giving robotic sanitisation technology a real place in future hospitals.
Challenges:
- High initial costs and integration hurdles: Service robots come at a significant upfront cost and often require significant changes in infrastructure. Integrating them into the hospital is complicated because robotic service must be integrated into the longer-term planning, budgeting, and evaluation process (i.e. EMR access and onboarding, scheduling, and route establishment). Deployments may stall while evaluating the difference between the cost and longer-term efficiencies when intended outcomes aren't realised in the short term. The smaller or cash-strapped provision may slow adoption altogether.
Hospital Service Robotics Market Regional Analysis:
- North America: After being faced with staff shortages, hospitals in the U.S. are using robots such as Diligent Robotics' Moxi to move the medications and supplies. More than 30 hospitals are using Moxi and freeing up nurses to spend up to 40% of their day, often referred to as "wasted time", on non-clinical work. At Northwestern Memorial and Lancaster General, Moxi delivered thousands of items to the hospitals' nursing units per week, and the fleet helped the nurses to spend less time moving from point A to point B and feel like they are more productive. Some unions are questionable about the automated scheduling aspect using AI, but the logistics robots are welcomed to support, not replace, care staff.
Hospital Service Robotics Market Segmentation
By Robot Function
- Delivery and Logistics Robots
- Disinfection and Sterilisation Robots
- Patient Transport Robots
- Telepresence Robots
By Application
By End-User
- Hospitals
- Outpatient Clinics
- Long-term Care Facilities
- Diagnostic Centers
By Geography
- North America
- United States
- Canada
- Mexico
- South America
- Europe
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- France
- Italy
- Others
- Middle East and Africa
- Asia Pacific
- Japan
- China
- India
- South Korea
- Taiwan
- Others
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