BOUNTIFUL–It’s doubtful that any of the residents at Creekside Senior Living in Bountiful thought their meals might someday be delivered to them by a robot—but that’s what’s been happening at the facility at 430 W. 400 North since the end of January.

Creekside has “employed” the services of Robi the Robot, a creation of Bear Robotics of California, to help with meal serving and busing of tables in Creekside’s dining room. Like her brother at another Stellar Senior Living facility in Idaho, Robi (she was named by residents in a contest) has been embraced by both residents and staff alike.

“We have one of our residents who is 102 and said, ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d get to see a robot’,” said Coy Huskinson, executive director at Creekside. “They love the laughter and the fun atmosphere that Robi has brought to the community.”

Robi can speak to residents in her very warm and feminine voice, wishing them a “Happy Birthday,” telling them “Good Morning” and even encouraging them to “Please take your food” or “Enjoy your food” when she gets to a dining room table. It’s programmed for resident safety as well. It never bumps into a table, chair, or resident and can stop immediately if it senses someone or something in its path.

While the robot provides a lot of fun for residents, it also serves a very practical need.

“One of the biggest reasons why we started looking for something different was our staffing shortage,” Huskinson said. “We’d been picking our brains on how to combat that issue so we could provide a service to our residents. We had to think outside the box.” 

The success of a similar robot at the parent-company’s Idaho facility made the decision to bring Robi to Bountiful an easy one.

Executive chef Tim Wittner said Robi is used “for a multitude of things, including busing and bringing out food. When we get busy, we have our servers come back to the kitchen, turn in a ticket, then go back out to take drinks to residents. Our goal is that by time they turn around, Robi is coming out with the food so they don’t have to walk all the way back to the kitchen–the food comes to them.” Wittner said Robi has proven to be a real time saver in the dining room process.

Randy Lewis, who works with marketing at Creekside, said Robi can also send out messages to residents. He said that the robot is programmed to go to the front desk, “so that when we have tours, we always give a treat to visitors and that dessert goes from the kitchen to the lobby with Robi.”

Robi carries three trays that are on different levels, and they are weight sensitive, so Robi knows when trays are getting too full with meals to serve or dirty dishes to return to the kitchen. The entire dining room area at Creekside has been mapped out into sectors which Robi is programmed to execute. A voice command from Wittner or a fellow staff member can send Robi on her way. For Valentine’s Day this year, Robi was used as an appetizer serving device. She went from section to section of the dining room so servers could take food off of her trays to give to residents.

“All of our servers are trained to work with her,” Wittner said. “One of my favorite things about the robot is that she’s helped us to become a better team. She requires us to communicate a little bit more–my cooks let my servers know when food is coming out on Robi, and it’s made things run quite smoothly.”

The robot can run about 10-12 hours per electric charge, which it can get from a regular outlet. Each week, staff is learning more and more things they can do with Robi’s help.

Perhaps best of all, Robi can’t get COVID, can’t get sick and never calls in for a day off.

“We wanted to find a way for our residents to feel safe so that when someone has a sniffle or cold and we don’t want them to come to work, we still have someone to help,” Huskinson said. “Robi eases the pressure for my team that’s working, and helps us deliver the service to our residents that we’re promising to give them.”

Not to mention a lot of smiles.λ