Specimen Robots in Hospitals: A Custody and Elevator Checklist

Can robots carry lab specimens on hospital routes?

Yes, robots are already carrying lab specimens on hospital routes, but a robot does not create chain of custody by itself. Custody is a process. Someone seals the tube, someone places it in the compartment, someone opens it at the other end, and each handoff should leave a record. That process is what a lab manager designs, tests and signs off.

The news hook is Rochester Regional Health's report that its Moxi robots passed 100,000 trips, a milestone reached in August 2026. According to a Finger Lakes 1 report dated August 21, 2026, more than 75,000 of those deliveries were at Rochester General Hospital and more than 25,000 at Unity Hospital, counted since the robots began operating in 2023. The robots move medications, supplies and laboratory specimens.

For a lab manager, the practical answer is to treat every robot run as a courier run with extra steps to verify. Check the custody path, the elevator and door access, the failure fallback and the staff hour math before a specimen rides. The checklist below follows that order.

What do the Rochester figures actually show?

Trip counts measure activity, not specimen integrity. The 100,000 figure says the robots completed trips, and the site split says where. It does not say how many specimens arrived intact, how many arrived late, or how many needed a redraw. Ask for those numbers from any vendor or health system you evaluate.

The staff hour figure needs the same care. Rochester estimates its robots have returned more than 50,000 staff hours, and that is the health system's own estimate, not an independent audit. Diligent Robotics makes Moxi, and the elevator ride and pharmacy delivery totals it has announced are company-wide figures rather than Rochester numbers. Treat them as vendor reported.

Which custody steps need written sign-off?

Custody starts before the robot moves. The collection workflow decides whether a tube is sealed, labeled and logged when it enters the robot, and the robot only inherits what it receives. Five steps belong in the written run procedure.

Vendors advertise locked compartments with PIN or biometric access, and logs that show who loaded an item and who removed it. One vendor describes sealed containers and a digitally recorded chain of custody for legal samples. These are vendor descriptions, so test them in your own building before relying on them.

Two questions remain open. No source confirmed that robot custody logs are accepted in legal, CAP or CLIA settings. Ask your lab director and accreditor before a robot carries a specimen that a court, payer or inspector might later examine.

• Name the loading point and the role of each person who places a specimen, rather than a shared badge.
• Test each compartment closure with the containers your lab actually uses, including sealed containers designed to keep liquid in.
• Set the unlock method for each compartment (PIN, biometric or badge) and list who holds each credential.
• Confirm who can switch custody logging on or off, since one vendor says its custody logging can be turned on or off.
• Keep specimens in their own compartment, never shared with medications or supplies on the same run.

How do robots handle elevators and doors?

Elevator access sets the pace of any specimen route. Vendor pages from Aethon and Relay Robotics, checked in November 2026, describe robots that call elevators and select floors through building controls. The same pages describe doors opened with existing staff credentials, such as RFID, key cards or an API. These are vendor descriptions, not independently verified results.

Walk the route with facilities before the first run. Confirm that the robot's elevator integration matches your building's controls, which car it will use, and whether it still works outside day shift. Check that the credential the robot carries can be revoked quickly by your security office.

What happens when a robot stalls mid-route?

No independent source in this research covered custody handling when a robot fails mid-route or an elevator is unavailable. That gap is the first thing a lab manager should close on paper. Three items belong in the written procedure, and each should be drilled before go live.

A failed drill costs far less than a lost specimen, and it produces the timing data that a vendor summary will not.

• Write a fallback courier path with a named responder, a direct phone line on the robot and a time limit after which a runner takes the specimen.
• Define who opens a stopped compartment, whether a second staff member must witness it, and how the log records that event.
• Record the stop time and the recovery time, so the lab can tell a stalled specimen from a slow one.

Are the staff hour savings real for your site?

Staff hour claims are easy to repeat and hard to verify. Before a lab counts robot hours as savings, it should know what was measured, by whom, and against what baseline. Five checks settle most of that.

Once the figures hold up on your floors, they are fair to use in a budget. Until then, treat them as a hypothesis that still needs a log.

• Ask who ran the measurement and where the baseline came from, your own staff timings or a vendor estimate.
• Time your own specimen runs over a representative period before go live, counting walk time, wait time and elevator waits for each courier trip.
• Count only specimen trips toward savings, because a robot trip may carry medications or supplies instead.
• Check vendor spec pages for placeholder values. One MedicalExpo listing for a Relay Robotics product showed zero values for performance figures, and those should not be used.
• Recalculate after a full month of logs, using the robot's own records rather than a summary slide.

How should a hospital start a specimen pilot?

Rochester began with four Moxi robots at Rochester General and four at Unity. A small first route lets a lab test custody logs, elevator access and the fallback path on real traffic before it commits to more units.

Service Robot Co. is a full service commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We are OEM neutral, so we select the robot that fits the route across manufacturers, then arrange a three year lease, deploy and integrate the unit, train staff and service it through a nationwide US engineer network. The lease is quoted as one fixed lease payment after a site assessment, so facilities and the lab see the cost before the route is built.

A site assessment is a practical place to walk the specimen route, the elevators and the fallback path with facilities and the lab present. Bring the custody checklist along and let the route test answer the open questions.