Healthcare Workers Save 120 km of Walking: Chung Shan Medical University and Its Hospital Partner with Compal to Develop Smart Medication Delivery Robots 2026/06/02 14:52:13 (Taipei, June 2, 2026) Chung Shan Medical University (CSMU) and its affiliated hospital have been actively promoting smart healthcare development in recent years, combining AI, big data analytics, and clinical applications to generate research energy through university-hospital collaboration. This year, they made their debut at the 2026 COMPUTEX Taipei, partnering with tech giant Compal Electronics to jointly showcase the "Smart Medication Delivery Robot" and the independently developed "Pharmacy Cloud Cube" system, demonstrating the cross-domain strength of the system from medical education and clinical care to smart technology integration.
At the opening ceremony of the computer exhibition on the morning of June 2, President Lai Ching-te also visited the venue and listened to an introduction on the development concept and clinical applications of the "Smart Medication Delivery Robot," affirming the innovative energy demonstrated by Taiwan's cross-sector collaboration between healthcare and technology.
CSMU President Huang Jian-ning stated that artificial intelligence technology is rapidly transforming the medical and educational environment. The university has been continuously promoting digital empowerment and deepening its smart healthcare布局 in recent years. In addition to establishing a Smart Healthcare Research Center, it has successively collaborated with organizations such as the Industrial Technology Research Institute to advance AI medical research, cultivate smart healthcare talent, and drive clinical applications. By combining these efforts with field validation at the affiliated hospital, the university accelerates the implementation of smart healthcare technology and gradually establishes a complete AI and digital capability cultivation system. This tripartite collaboration with tech giant Compal brings AI to the medical field, effectively reducing the burden on healthcare workers and turning dreams into reality.
CSMU Chairman Chou Ying-hsiang pointed out that the "Smart Medication Delivery Robot" exhibited this time was jointly developed by CSMU, its hospital, and Compal Electronics, combining Physical AI and Digital Twin technologies to create smart medical logistics and human-machine collaboration application scenarios. Faced with increasingly strained medical manpower, the team delegated the most physically demanding task—medication delivery—to robots. According to statistics, in the past, emergency healthcare workers and pharmacy staff made up to 1,500 round trips per month for medication retrieval and replenishment. Although traditional pneumatic tube systems are fast, they often risk medication damage or leakage. After introducing the smart medication delivery robot, with each round trip in the emergency department covering about 80 meters, it can save frontline staff more than 120 kilometers of walking per month, reducing medication delivery manpower by approximately 25%. If expanded to wards and operating rooms, it is estimated that over 500 kilometers of walking could be saved per month.
CSMU Hospital Superintendent Tsai Ming-che emphasized that the hospital has been deeply cultivating smart pharmacy and smart healthcare applications in recent years. At the end of 2023, it introduced hospital-wide automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs) and the "ADC+S Risk Management System," which have received recognition from the National Healthcare Quality Award, SNQ National Quality Mark, and National Innovation Award. He stressed that the core of smart healthcare is not to increase the burden on healthcare workers, but to use technology to take over high-frequency delivery tasks, allowing medical staff to devote more time to patients who truly need clinical judgment.
Compal Electronics Senior Vice President Chen Hsi-kuan noted that to ensure medical-grade safety, the team also established a "Smart Medication Delivery Closed-loop Workflow" for the emergency department and pharmacy, using dedicated staff and card-based access control. The "Pharmacy Cloud Cube" is responsible for full tracking and management of medications, while Compal's POLYMEDX serves as a "Physical AI Operations Platform" for smart robot task dispatch and hospital logistics workflow integration. After the pharmacist completes dispensing, the medication enters the "Pharmacy Cloud Cube" for full tracking, and the POLYMEDX platform coordinates the medication delivery robot and task scheduling system in real time, improving efficiency in medication distribution, secure delivery, and logistics management. Chen also mentioned that the core of future smart hospitals lies in establishing an intelligent operations platform that can be perceived and managed by AI. This tripartite collaboration is not only a process innovation but also hopes to create an efficient human-machine collaboration model through the "Smart Medication Delivery Robot" and "Pharmacy Cloud Cube," and will promote the "Taiwan Experience" to the international smart healthcare market in the future.
