## 1 Introduction  
The nursing profession in the United States is critical to the provision of healthcare services and constitutes a large segment of the healthcare workforce. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for nurses is expected to increase by 9% from 2020 to 2030 [1], driven by the increasing incidence of chronic diseases and the aging population's need for healthcare services. The health and wellness (both physical and mental) of healthcare professionals, including nurses [2], are crucial to ensuring safe and high-quality healthcare delivery. A recent study [3] conducted across six countries highlights the relationship between nurse burnout and perceptions of care quality, emphasizing the importance of addressing the well-being of nurses in the healthcare system. Nurse burnout is a widespread phenomenon that can lead to decreased energy, increased fatigue, and a decline in patient care. According to [PERSON] et al. [4], the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the situation, with nurses facing increased workloads, exposure to the virus, and the emotional stress of caring for patients in a high-stakes environment. Nurses shoulder a multitude of responsibilities, including the evaluation of a patient's condition, documentation of medical histories, vital signs and symptoms, administration of treatments, collaboration with physicians and other healthcare practitioners, transfer or ambulation of patients, especially during post-surgery, and procurement of medical supplies. Addressing nurse burnout is essential to ensure the sustainability of the nursing workforce and to maintain safe and high-quality healthcare delivery. This can be achieved through a range of interventions, including providing adequate staffing levels, promoting work-life balance, and using robots. The utilization of robots for routine tasks, such as procurement of items or patient ambulation, allows for a reduction in the workload of nurses and enables them to concentrate on tasks that require their specialized knowledge and skills. In recent years, to assist nurses with some of their routine tasks, with the advances in robotic technology and artificial intelligence (AI), robots have the potential to perform some of their routine tasks, which allows nurses to focus on actual patient care. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, various robotic systems have been introduced to enhance hospital logistics, including disinfection of spaces and patient care [5; 6]. These systems include robots that perform delivery tasks and object retrieval, reducing the need for human interaction in potentially contaminated areas and freeing up medical personnel to focus on more critical tasks [7], rehabilitation [8; 9], walking assistance [10], and monitoring vital signs [11] that are essential components of patient care, which help improve patient outcomes and support the healing process. However, most hospitals cannot afford to acquire and assign specialized robots for each task. A unified robotic system that could cover a large range of hospital tasks is a potential solution. Accordingly, following the example of industrial applications utilizing multi-purpose robotic systems [12; 13], a commercially available mobile manipulator could be reconfigured to assist nurses in a variety of tasks. Our prior work [14; 15; 16; 17] has presented a multi-purpose intelligent nursing assistant called MINA, which is a commercially available mobile manipulator and can assist with fetching objects, gait monitoring, and the possibility of teleoperation by the nurses. This paper aims to add additional functionality to MINA by enabling the robot to assist a patient in navigating safely in a hospital. It is assumed that the patient is able to walk with minimum support (e.g., a cane or a nurse holding their hand) and is required to walk for rehabilitation purposes with supervision (e.g., after surgery).