Florida Hospitals Automate the Gurney

BayCare and Rovex launch a seven-month pilot using autonomous robots to move patients and cut staff burden across Florida hospitals

12 May 2026

Robots Are Coming for the Hospital Gurney.

Every month, up to 30,000 patient transports happen inside a single hospital. Almost all of them are done by hand.

BayCare Health System is trying to change that. The Florida-based network, which operates 16 hospitals and posted $6.97 billion in 2025 operating revenue, has partnered with robotics startup Rovex to pilot autonomous transport technology at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. Launched April 21, the seven-month program deploys Rovex's Rovi robot to retrieve and tow stretchers, wheelchairs, and equipment across hospital floors, freeing clinical staff from logistics work and returning them to patients.

Rovi navigates corridors, doors, and elevators using obstacle detection and route mapping. It attaches to any stretcher brand without custom hardware, which matters in a hospital environment where standardization is rarely the norm. The pilot opens with workflow analysis and empty stretcher movement, with patient transport added in later phases once safety protocols are validated.

The concept was shaped by someone who has lived the problem. Rovex founder and CEO David Crabb is an emergency physician, and his time on the floor clearly informed the product. "Hospital logistics has downstream effects on staff workload, patient flow, and the patient experience," he said. That is a polite way of describing something clinicians know viscerally: a delayed gurney can back up an imaging suite, stall a surgical schedule, and ripple disruption through an entire ward.

Healthcare has absorbed billions in investment for AI diagnostics and surgical robotics. Physical logistics, by contrast, has stayed stubbornly manual. Rovex is betting that gap is finally ready to close. With US workforce shortages widening and patient volumes rising, automating routine transport is moving from a smart idea to a practical necessity.

BayCare's vice president of innovation, Craig Anderson, has said results from Morton Plant will shape how health systems nationwide rethink hospital design and operations. If the pilot delivers, Clearwater may end up being where the industry's next major shift quietly began.