NTNU and Mackay Memorial Team Up on Smart Nursing Technology
In the face of long-term nursing shortages and heavy workloads, researchers are looking for ways technology can allow nurses to focus more directly on patient care. At NTNU, Professor Wei-Yen Wang of the Department of Electrical Engineering has led a team working with Mackay Memorial Hospital to develop an “AI Smart Nursing Cart” equipped with autonomous navigation, voice interaction, and analytical tools. On Aug. 14, the two institutions signed a cooperation agreement to pursue the project, with the aim of reducing nurses’ daily burdens and improving the quality of care.
NTNU Vice President Yao-Ting Sung said the partnership reflects the university’s long-term effort to build ties with industry and cultural institutions. NTNU has collaborated with companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), NVIDIA, and Realtek, as well as with the National Palace Museum and Longshan Temple. He said the agreement with Mackay demonstrates both the school’s research capacity and its intent to bring interdisciplinary advances into the medical field.
According to Yu-Jen Chen, associate superintendent at Mackay Memorial Hospital, nurses spend considerable time moving medications, documents, and equipment, which reduces the time available for direct patient care. The new cart is part of a broader effort to apply AI technology to education, healthcare, and social services in step with the growth of “smart medicine.”
Nurses often push carts weighing 40 to 50 kilograms, a major physical strain. Wang said the team’s goal is to reduce that burden by using technology. The cart’s system, built on NVIDIA Jetson Orin, integrates machine vision, speech recognition, autonomous navigation, and a human-machine interface, creating a platform designed to let nurses devote more time to patients.
The cart has been tested in hospice care settings. Dr. Tsung-Yu Yen of Mackay’s MacKay Hospice and Palliative Care Center said the collaboration not only lightens the workload of nursing staff but also improves the quality of care in practice.
The project has gone through three stages of development. The first prototype resembled a large storage cabinet and could only move on its own. A second version adopted a nursing cart design but was not practical in clinical settings. The final version modified Mackay’s existing carts with a mobile chassis, allowing nurses to use familiar equipment while adding new functions.
The cart can be operated with a touchscreen. Routes can be set from the nursing station to patient bedsides and other destinations. The system builds an internal map and supports multiple paths. Engineers do not need to pre-program maps: using a “follow mode,” staff can guide the cart once along a route and the cart will memorize and repeat it, making deployment in new facilities faster and easier.
Under the agreement, NTNU provides research and development while Mackay covers equipment and other costs. The project runs from August 2025 through July 2027. One cart has already been tested at Mackay’s Tamsui branch, and a second is expected to be in use by late October. Future upgrades will include patrol, monitoring, dialogue, and anomaly-detection functions.
To cut down on repetitive paperwork, the team has also built a voice-input app customized for Mackay. It allows nurses to dictate observation notes directly into the cart’s system, which then transcribes and archives them. The system will be refined with additional clinical vocabulary to improve accuracy. The app is scheduled to roll out alongside the second cart.
The collaboration highlights NTNU’s work at the intersection of artificial intelligence and medical technology, while aiming to keep human care at the center.