Robotic dispensing in hospitals

[Nik]

I read an article about a new 3 armed "robotic pharmacist" at a hospital in Peterborough and just wondered how hospital pharmacists view the arrival of robotic dispensing. On the face of it, it looks like a good thing (speeding up dispensing, more time on wards) but what about staff ? It would be good to hear what pharmacists' opinions are of these robots. Does anyone work in a hospital with dispensing robots ??

[Rafael]

they are not only in hospitals! some busy pharmacies installed robots to do the dispensing, typical for those doing more than 25000 items/month.

[Tony Schofield]

Get used to robots. They are getting better and work 24 hours a day for less than the cost of a technician for 40 hours a week.

[JonF]

Does anyone have experience of a dispensing robot? How do they handle split packs, or do you just end up with a shelf full of part packs??

Approx how many items an hour can they pick??

[johnep]

The robots are really just larger versions of the machines which dispense sweets crisps, drinks etc. They will only select a product as a whole pack, any adjustments have to be done manually. Not rocket science really.
johnep

[Fleegle]

Is there another, smaller robot who checks off the orders, and re-stocks this cutting-edge "crisp dispenser"? If stock is wrongly placed, who is responsible? as it would appear the wrong product will always be dispensed until the error is (manually) rectified....Just a thought..

[happy_bunny]

When I did my cross sector in hospital the robot had a bar-code reader and would use this both to put away stock and get it out again...I'm not sure what happened about part-packs, I think in hospital it is generally acceptable to give out the nearest full pack for most things (but please correct me if I am wrong as I only spent 2 weeks in hosp). I don't think I saw it make any mistakes either - but maybe I just didn't watch it long enough

[johnep]

Yes the more expensive versions will sort from a tote box just emptied into hopper. But not Gaviscon or Lactulose.
johnep

[srs]

We have had a robot for a couple of years now and mostly it is a positive addition. However:
When it breaks (which it does frequently) it causes chaos as only a limited number of people know how to fix it.
It has de-skilled a number of dispensary staff who now appear not to be able to count for items not being dispensed as op's.
It appears to have slowed down the 'booking in' process and many items are left in boxes waiting to be put away in the robot.

They also require a complete re-fit of the dispensary in order to fit them in!
(which is not necessarily a bad thing)

[Grandy]

I have only seen one of these working ever and was most impressed with it, however, the "robot manager" (thats a title i have used) was saying it was good whilst it worked. They had two robots side by side so if one broke down the other could take over but.... the week before on a friday one broke down at 1500h the other 10 minutes later so now they had stock in the robot which is apparently stored according to size shape and weight and not alphabetically so trying to find items was an absolute logistical nightmare.
The only way they got round it was that they had big mental health dispensing for theie trust so some of the medication was available as part packs consequently they dispensed for 7 days instead of the 28.
Trying to get an engineer at best of times is difficult, trying to get one at 1600h on a Friday was next to impossible.