Robots in the ER? Cornell video with robotics researcher Angelique Taylor

Cornell University released an episode of its video podcast "Research Matters" on its official YouTube channel on 20 October. Titled "Do robots belong in the emergency room?", it features the work of Angelique Taylor, who directs the AIRLab at Cornell Tech and also teaches emergency medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. According to the university, she discusses what happens when a robot enters the chaos of a hospital emergency department.

Taylor's team is known for an approach from earlier studies: it fitted a standard crash cart – the wheeled cabinet holding drugs and supplies for resuscitations – with LED strips, a speaker and a tablet. On request, the cart uses blinking lights or spoken cues to show which drawer holds an item, and it gives medication reminders. In a pilot study with 84 participants who simulated resuscitations on a manikin in groups, they rated the robotic cart with light and speech cues as less demanding and more useful than a standard cart.

According to Cornell, a field study with clinical teams also showed reduced workload, but room for improvement in the visual cues. Taylor said back in 2024 that one cannot go straight to a fully autonomous system; first one must understand how a robot can help.