Friday, January 16, 2004

Robot Speeds Medication Administration A robot "pharmacist" by McKesson Corporation has been implemented at Cox Health Systems' Cox South hospital in Springfield, Mo.  It is able to package and fill medication orders for as many as 400 patients per day.  Physicians at Cox South enter prescriptions electronically which are sent directly to the robot. It moves through the pharmacy on two tracks, retrieves the prepackaged drugs with bar codes matching the order.  The robot also creates envelopes with bar code labels and deposits the completed order. Pharmacy workers deliver the envelopes to the nursing staff. The goal is to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors as well as to  increase production and personnel efficiency. Instead of 4 technicians handling drugs, the hospital now as one technician packaging and bar coding drugs and another supervising the robot. The hospital reports a 99.9% success rate.  1:42:35 PM    comment []

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