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TECHNOLOGY


AUTOMATION AND ROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY ARE CONSTANTLY CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE OF COMMUNITY PHARMACY OPERATION. INCREASINGLY, PATIENTS ARE WALKING INTO PHARMACIES TO BE FACED WITH ROBOTIC DISPENSERS, WHICH ARE TIED TOGETHER WITH ROBUST INTEGRATED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS.


AUTOMATION INCREASINGLY INTEGRATED T


here’s no doubt that, in order to survive and prosper in community pharmacy today, contractors need to introduce a high degree of integrated automation. One area in which this is needed is in the sheer volume of patients who take a multiplicity of drugs.


Across Scotland – and indeed the UK – members of the pharmacy team are increasingly being tasked with the preparation of medicines dosage systems: a time-consuming task. At a time when Scottish community pharmacists are being asked to provide an increasingly clinical function, many are finding their time – and their staff’s time – taken up with this non-cost effective task.


As a result, many pharmacies are now introducing systems, which can fill, label and automatically store MDS.


Over a period of time, Nadine Miller, Operations Manager at Dickson Chemist, had noticed that pharmacy managers were struggling to fill the number mediboxes that each of the pharmacies was dealing with.


‘The managers were telling us that the number of MDS boxes was constantly growing,’ Nadine told SP, ‘and it was obvious that, in light of the ageing population, the need for them was just getting bigger.


‘It was obvious that a new system was needed to meet our patients’ needs and so, after comprehensive research, we opted for the Synmed system. The prescription comes in as usual and is sent electronically to Synmed. The files are then sent to the robot, which


44 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST


produces the blister packs, which are then sealed and checked. They’re then picked up by a driver from each store and twelve are delivered daily to each branch.


‘There is no doubt that the installation of the new system has taken the pressure off the managers. We’re now able to produce 60 blister packs a day per branch, giving us an incredible 300 blister packs a week per branch: almost 1000 a week in total across the group. Each pharmacy now only needs to make up about 25 a week in store, which is obviously a lot less labour intensive.’


Meanwhile, in the Scottish capital, contractor Dara O’Malley from Omnicare, acknowledges that his pharmacies had reached crisis points with dosette boxes across all of the shops.


‘We currently deal with dosette boxes for over 1000 patients across the eight shops each week,’ Dara told SP, ‘which is a huge workload. We knew that we had to look at something that was not only labour saving, but which would also improve accuracy and capacity. Also, we knew that we had to give the pharmacists the time and space to develop other services.


‘We looked what was going on across the shops. The managers were telling us that they were struggling with levels of trays – particularly if a member of staff was off sick, and it was increasingly difficult to keep a continuity of service.


‘The key thing about Synmed – its USP if you like – was the fact that you


Omnicare owner, Dara O’Malley, and system operator, Rachel.


don’t have to calibrate canisters. The volatility of the generic market at the moment made this a win-win and effectively ruled out all of the other competition. I knew that I didn’t want a closed tray and, in fact, when I put it in front of the managers and asked how they felt about it – they said that if an ACT was checking, they would want it done on an open tray.


‘We’ve now had the system in for about a year and a half and I would say that it has saved at least six members of staff across all of the shops.


‘All of the dosette boxes for all of the shops (we now have nine) are serviced by the robot and we operate with a hub and spoke system. Our MDS business is a massive operation and will, I would anticipate, simply continue to grow, but even though we are consistently having to supply more to our patients, our system has never operated more smoothly than it is doing now. We’ve gone from our pharmacists drowning in their workload to a system that is


The team at Dickson Chemist (l-r): Owner, Stephen Dickson; operators Njoubla and Maureen, and Operations Manager, Nadine Miller.


smooth and highly effective. We’ve also effectively eliminated the risks that were involved in doing these boxes manually, so that’s another major benefit for our patients – and ourselves!’ •


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