- There are times when technology is better
than the human touch. Just ask Phil, or maybe his name is Rx, though there's
no way to know, since he can't answer when you ask him.
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- The pharmacy department at Naples Community
Hospital is now using a robot - staffers are still debating its name -
to fill patient medication orders, keep inventory, and save loads of employee
time on tedious aspects of running a pharmacy.
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- And since Phil (or is it Rx?) doesn't
talk, pharmacy director Mike Sanborn has to do the boasting. He says the
robot and its clones nationwide have filled 60 million prescriptions so
far without error.
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- Manufactured by McKesson Automated Healthcare
based in Pittsburgh, the robot costs $600,000 over a 5-year lease, but
it will bring a savings in staff members' time and is advantageous for
patient care, he said.
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- Besides its accuracy, it frees pharmacists
to spend more time with physicians and patients on how medications work,
interact, and their side effects.
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- "You can't put a value on the elimination
of mistakes," Sanborn said.
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- The McKesson robot first came out in
1992 and has been refined since, but it is the first of its kind in terms
offering a centralized robotic system for preparing and dispensing drug
dosages and tracking inventory.
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- Existing automation systems are based
on hospital floors for just dispensing drugs.
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- Sanborn said more robotic systems are
being developed as hospitals gradually make the conversion. There are at
least 150 hospitals nationwide are using the robot and contracts are pending
with another 50 hospitals, he said.
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- The Lee Memorial Health System and Columbia/HCA
Healthcare Corp. use an automated dispensing system, called Pyxis, in their
hospitals in Lee County. They do not have a robot however.
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- Jerry Nunn, pharmacy director at Columbia's
Southwest Florida Medical Center in Fort Myers, said Columbia nationally
has a contract with McKesson for its robots once leases expire with Pyxis.
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- "Things are looking very strongly
like we're going with McKesson," Nunn said.
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- Unlike "Robot" in the popular
"Lost in Space" television series in the 1960s, the pharmacy
robot stays put in his own room in the NCH pharmacy, surrounded by 690
different drugs in little bags hanging on rods. Each bag has a bar code.
The rack inventory represents 92 percent of the drugs used daily in the
hospital.
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- When a patient's medication order is
entered in a computer by the pharmacist or elsewhere in the hospital, the
data is transferred to the robot.
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- On a floor track, the robot zips up and
down the rows of racks. Using electricity and compressed air, it grabs
hold of each drug baggy it needs by reading the bar codes. The bags can
contain a syringe bottle and liquid medicine, not just a capsule or pill.
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- "It knows exactly where they (the
drugs) are located," Sanborn said.
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- From there, the robot dispenses the baggies
in plastic drawers traveling on a conveyer belt, in which each drawer is
bar-coded for a patient and which room the patient is in. On average, each
patient takes seven different drugs while hospitalized.
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- "It senses when a drawer is on a
conveyor belt," Sanborn said. The drawers are then put on pharmacy
carts for delivering to the hospital floors.
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- The robot can fill 100 drug dosages an
hour, and Sanborn said its memory is endless for how many patients' medications
it can keep stored in its computer brain.
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- "Some hospitals do 1,000 patient
dosages a day," he said.
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- Nunn, of Columbia's Regional Medical
Center, said the McKesson robot has proven accurate so far. "It's
as good as the bar-coding on the bags," he said.
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- NCH's robot became operational hospital-wide
in early January. With 400 patients in the hospital now, the robot runs
from midnight to 4 a.m. filling medication dosages, and then it spends
a few hours restocking the baggys on the racks from a restocking component.
The computer can sense how full each rack is by the thickness of the bag.
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- All told, the robot is on duty about
eight hours a day; eventually it will operate 24 hours, Sanborn said. There
are no immediate plans for it to prepare patients' drug dosages at North
Collier Hospital off Immokalee Road, NCH's second hospital in Collier County.
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- "It's kind of intriguing,"
Fran Green, NCH executive vice president of operations. "I definitely
think it's the wave of the future."
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- Besides accuracy and freeing pharmacists'
time to work more with physicians and patients, Green said the hospital
expects to start seeing a financial savings in about one year Annually,
the savings should be $100,000, she said.
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- On a lighter note, she added: "It
doesn't have to have holidays. It answers every demand."
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- Sanborn said four pharmacy technician
positions have been eliminated through attrition. Manually, it would take
three or four people about eight hours a day to do what the robot is doing
now.
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- With the robot keeping efficient track
of inventory, about $25,000 in projected savings will be in inventory;
pharmacies historically are either overstocked on some medications and
understocked in others, he said.
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- Officials at the Florida Board of Pharmacy,
which regulate the industry, were unavailable for comment Friday about
the robotic system.
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- Michael Jackson, executive vice president
of the Florida Pharmacy Association representing 3,100 pharmacists, said:
"Obviously, it's an advancement in technology. The question is how
the state board will regulate it, check up on the robots. It is my understanding
the issue of automated systems has been brought before the board, and the
board has decided to continue to studying them."
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- The robot or other automated systems
are something that hospitals are going toward, although mail-order drug
companies have long used automated systems.
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- For retail pharmacies, the robot's expense
is prohibitive. While stores like Eckerds and Walgreens do brisk prescription
business, Jackson doesn't see the robot taking off on the retail level.
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- Sanborn said once a month, a company
representative comes out and does a check up on the robot, and will replace
whatever part may need replacing. Leasing the robot instead of buying it
is advantageous because the software and technology will keep getting upgraded.
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