April 8, 2022Meet Sandy, the latest innovation at Northern Health.
Sandy is a LeoScrub, a robotic floor scrubber, designed to bring cleaning efficiencies to the health service.
Northern Health is also the first health service across Australia to have Sandy implemented into hospital operations.
Saj Amerasinghe, ISS Key Account Manager, said Sandy will allow hospital cleaners to redivert their focus on other jobs and find efficiencies while Sandy scrubs the floor.
“If staff are wanting to clean the main foyer, that takes about 45 minutes. But we can get the LeoScrub to do that job, and have staff for 45 minutes, do something else.”
“We don’t want to take away from anyone’s job, but to utilise that time productively on another cleaning task.”
Sandy has become a permanent fixture at Northern Health. She is currently being trialed at Northern Hospital Epping to measure accuracy before implementing more LeoScrubs across other Northern Health sites.
“We have trialed it at Entry 5 and the main foyer and my plan is to trial it at CSSD and Outpatient corridors during non-operational hours,” Saj said.
“We also need to make sure it doesn’t interrupt the hospital operations – we can’t have it blocking patients’ way.”
“So far, we’ve had a positive response. We’ve had cleaning staff here for 18 years and they were so happy to see the machine because they could focus on something else.”
“The sustainability of the LeoScrub is also going to benefit Northern Health in the long run.”
Sandy uses 70 per cent less water than other cleaning robots, while achieving the same high cleaning results. Sandy leaves behind much drier floors than current solutions due to stronger water extraction to provide safer surroundings.
Sandy is also the first robot in the world to clean exclusively with Z water – a professional cleaning chemical that is safe and environmentally friendly.
Sandy is more than just a scrubber. She is programmed to talk to people and remind us to maintain social distancing, wear a mask and keep up good hand hygiene.
Sandy can sing songs, Christmas carols and say jokes by scanning the QR code on the LeoScrub, and selecting from a programmed list.
“It can do lots of things. You can also program it to be a concierge by parking it somewhere and helping out with directions,” Saj said.
“We can always look into that in the future, but we want to make sure for now that it does the job of scrubbing.”
Sandy has a five-hour run time, and can run for a total of 15 hours in one day, with two hour charge times.
“Our plan is to have a few more chargers so you don’t have to move chargers across the hospital,” Saj said.
