Neither the blood-draw robot nor the feeding tube robot is cleared by the FDA for autonomous use in the United States. The Feeding Tube Problem Is a Safety Problem FirstThe case for automating enteral tube placement rests on complication rates rather than throughput. Sometimes, one even leaves the feeding tube within the lungs, and it fills up the lung with fluid nutrients." Robotic feeding tube insertion is much further back. The published 94.5 percent first-stick rate sits inside the 93 to 97 percent range reported for trained human phlebotomists.