A Large Israeli Medical Center Cuts Chemo Delivery Time From 40 to 14 Minutes

A time-critical run that depended on people moving through corridors

Chemotherapy is among the most tightly timed work in a hospital. A dose prepared in the pharmacy has to reach a treatment unit on schedule, and the clock keeps running while staff locate a porter, wait for an elevator and pick a route through busy corridors. At a large medical center in Israel, the average trip for these medications had stretched to about 40 minutes.

Delays of that length are rarely caused by one bottleneck. They build up across handoffs, lift access and the simple fact that a person carrying a time-sensitive item can be pulled into other tasks along the way. For clinical teams waiting on a dose, the uncertainty mattered almost as much as the minutes.

• Average chemotherapy medication trip: about 40 minutes
• Human couriers shared their time with other hospital tasks
• Routes crossed elevators, doors and gates that needed coordination

Introducing robots alongside staff, not in place of them

Commercial operation began in December 2025, with chemotherapy medication as the first major use case. Robots carried medications from the pharmacy to treatment units, and the work ran on one operations layer that schedules and assigns each run by location, priority and availability.

The platform coordinates robots and human staff together and works with robots from more than one vendor. It connects to the building itself, including elevators, doors, gates and operational systems, so a robot can move between floors without a person holding the lift or the door.

The rollout was staged. The public tender allows up to 30 robots, and three are deployed so far, which leaves room to scale within that limit.

• Pharmacy to treatment unit chemotherapy runs came first
• One orchestration layer assigns work by location, priority and availability
• Robots and human staff share a single operating picture
• Elevator, door and gate integration supports multi floor routes
• October 2026 expansion added bone marrow and donated blood transport

What the measured times show and what is still being tracked

The headline change is the average chemotherapy medication delivery time, which fell from about 40 minutes to about 14 over 11 months. That is a reduction of roughly 65 percent. The figure comes from the vendor and its investor partner, so it reflects company reported measurement rather than an independent audit.

Scale is the second signal. Completed autonomous missions across indoor and outdoor routes passed 9,000 by October 2026, again as reported by the company. Three robots are deployed against a tender allowing up to 30, so the operation is still early in its own growth.

The October 2026 expansion added bone marrow specimen transport from hematology to the laboratory, and donated blood transport from the donation center to the blood bank. The stated aims are shorter transport delays, better traceability and faster laboratory turnaround. Measured results for laboratory turnaround, staffing and patient outcomes have not yet been reported, so those remain aims for now.

What a time-critical run means for other operators

The lesson for hospital operators is less about the robot itself and more about the run. When a trip is short, predictable and urgent, the time lost to waiting and handoffs often costs more than the walking. A robot that follows the same route at the same pace removes much of the variability that slows these runs down.

Service Robot Co. is a full service, OEM neutral commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We select the right robots across manufacturers, then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network. A facility weighing a hospital delivery robot works with one partner for site assessment, mapping, lift and door integration, staff training and ongoing service. The robot is supplied on a three year lease, with one fixed payment quoted after the site assessment.

Other manufacturers also build delivery and transport robots. A facility should compare options against its own floors, elevators and workflows before choosing, and a robot leasing program makes that comparison easier to fund and test.