Robot Pharmacists

Makarand writes "The next time you visit a pharmacy your prescription may be filled by a robot according to a TechTV article. Hospitals and drugstores are now increasingly relying on automated technology to count, bottle, and label prescription drugs in a faster and more accurate way. The technology uses a bar-code system similar to those used to read prices in grocery stores. Doctors enter prescription details directly into the pharmacy computer. The robot springs into action when an order is recieved. Riding on a conveyor belt, the robot picks up an empty vial, identifies the bar code of the chosen drug, and automatically fills the drug bottle."

Comments

From the trenches�

[(H)elix1]

This seems like a great idea, until I read the line - "Doctors type prescriptions into a pharmacy computer system and the orders send the robot into action." This implies a physician (or health care provider if you prefer a more derogatory term the insurance world uses) will actually use technology.... Not just a computer, but a handheld, tablet PC, something with a browser... the chances are slim to none with most of the baby boomers out there.

My first real world experience with CORBA was connecting a Cobol program on a mainframe to a Java application. The Java app would then shoot drug interaction and formulary data to be used by the Physician's winCE handheld. As a former biochemist that spent a serious amount of time working with MD/PhD's in a hospital, the app seemed like a killer idea - response time was fast, the data was secure, and the information was personalized. Then they tried to get them to use the thing. I understand 'you can lead a horse to water' on a whole new level.

Anyhow, there is the human factor as well. It is hard to beat a well designed smart system, but I like the idea of requiring two humans - one to order the drug, another to confirm. The physician spends a surprisingly little amount of time in the real sciences compared to a pharmacist. Different skill set (filtered on what I consider real science). As a side note, pharmacists were pretty good with technology - since they were using Power Builder thick clients and later web interfaces to deal with co-pays, adjudication, interaction warnings, etc.

Counting pills is not hard. Knowing that pill x with pill y scores you a role on the potion miscibility chart is priceless. A real easy fix to "has to read doctor's handwriting" problem? Get them to type the bloody prescription. Wait that would require them to use some funky software ranging from a typewriter to a computer thing...
nah... too hard.

Had this been a toolkit for a pharmacist, it would really take off.

My friend owns one of these robots

[jht]

I have a good friend who owns a large independent pharmacy in New England (I won't be more specific, because I'm not sure if he'd want it mentioned here - though his store and system have been profiled in both trade and general newspapers). He loves it - it handles his top 200 medications, and in his own paraphrased words:

"It lets the pharmacists (of which he is one) spend more time with the patients, and less time counting pills."

He is able to keep a couple fewer pharmacy techs on hand then he used to need for his volume, but it gives the pharmacists a nice assist. He worries less about mistakes - the sanity checks these machines have are a lot more reliable than a human's would be. He's told me he sleeps better at night, knowing the likelihood of a potentially fatal mistake is far lower because of the robot. He sees the role of a pharmacist as being to advise and dispense - with a strong emphasis on the first job.

Here's a true anecdotal story supporting robot usage: I take a Priloec every day. One time I went to my local CVS to get a refill - when I got home and opened the bottle I found Prozac instead (the prescription label was correct - they just filled it with the wrong drug). They took care of the problem immediately, but imagine if I wasn't bright enough to realize that those pills weren't mine (I joke that I'd still have had stomach trouble, but I'd have been happy about it). Fortunately, taking a Prozac per day wouldn't have killed me, but what if it had been something that could have?

That's where I can see robots helping the typical pharmacist. It'll prevent those sort of mistakes from happening, and ensure that the drug ordered is the drug given.