PATI ENT SAFE T Y
Improving safety with the ‘autonomous pharmacy’
Medication costs are rising at a startling rate, there is further scrutiny on controlled substance use, and medication non-adherence is taking a toll on healthcare costs and patient outcomes. Meanwhile, nursing and pharmacy staff are often trapped performing repetitive and administrative tasks that keep them away from patient care. Paul O’Hanlon discusses the role of technology and automation in improving patient safety.
The ‘Autonomous Pharmacy’ is a real and attainable vision for the future of digital medication management. It will combat challenges faced in healthcare today because manual, error-prone activities will be replaced by efficient, automated processes – ideally with 100% precision. Industry leaders are already making inroads towards this vision with a combination of advanced automation, data intelligence and service solutions. However, automation alone is not enough. The data from the automated systems must be harnessed to deliver intelligent insights and drive innovation in healthcare.
This ambitious vision comes in the wake
of a report by the Department of Health & Social Care, in 2018, which disclosed that in England 237 million mistakes occur every year at some point in the medication process. These errors cause serious issues for patient safety, but also place a significant cost burden on an already stretched NHS. The estimated costs to the NHS of avoidable adverse drug reactions is £98.5 million per year, consuming 181,626 bed days, causing 712 deaths and contributing to a further 1,078 deaths.1 Fundamentally, a fully automated pharmacy would mean that such errors and their grave consequences would be eradicated, driving lower costs and increased safety. As a result, pharmacists and other healthcare providers could realise the full scope of their roles by spending more time on the most important thing, which is direct patient care.
The impact of slow technology adoption A 2019 survey found that, shockingly, 87% of pharmacists believe that the pharmacy profession has been slow to adopt new
technology.2
This is damning, particularly
when you consider that other technological innovations, such as Artificial Intelligence and virtual care, have been making waves in the healthcare sector. Pharmacy has been lagging behind somewhat and this is due to inadequate investment, an overdependence on manual processes and siloed technology. There are six key risk areas for medicines in healthcare all managed by completely separate systems, with some performed manually. These areas are: prescribing, monitoring and review; administration; transfer of care; supply, storage and disposal; workforce capacity and competence; reporting and learning from incidents. As the Department of Health & Social Care’s
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report shows, due to such practices many medication errors are still reported – resulting in severe patient harm, health deterioration and, in the worst-case scenario, death. And yet, technology exists that practically eradicates all these issues. The survey of pharmacists provided an overriding consensus that the Autonomous Pharmacy could improve patient care and care home services. Indeed, 73% of pharmacists feel that there should be an increased focus on technology and automation on the National Pharmacy Agenda. A more automated pharmacy would therefore enable a move away from time spent on manual drug distribution to a more patient-centric model with a focus on direct patient care.
OCTOBER 2020
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