Sep 23 2010
Based on a research, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists has revealed that in the nation, only 24% of hospitals adopt the bar coding method of validating the medications which are delivered by the pharmacy.
It was reported that every year, McKesson’s ROBOT-Rx system delivers half a billion drugs without any error. It ensures 99% precision of the dispensed medications and also provides 90% reduction of the pharmacists’ job of verifying the drugs before dispensing. Additionally, the drug inventory has been reduced by 20%.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding was declared by the government for those Medical centers which implement certified electronic health record (EHR) systems. In order to avail the incentives, most of the health care providers opted for pharmacy automation Chesapeake Regional included the ROBOT-Rx with their existing EHR and medication handling solutions of McKesson. Ken Deans, Chief Information Officer for Chesapeake Regional has stated that the pharmacy automation system assists them in providing extensive healthcare solutions, thereby ensuring service quality and patients’ safety. He added that instead of focusing on medication distribution activities, the pharmacy staff can devote more time in streamlining patient drug treatment methods which can profoundly benefit the patients.
It was reported that after the installation of the drug dispensing system, these medical centers will also include the MedCarousel medication management and automated storage and retrieval system for refilling and handling various inventories stored in automated medication cabinets that are included on patient floors. Few hospitals will utilize ROBOT-Ready PACMED, a robot which packs drugs in bar-coded, single-dose format. The other automated applications to be included are Automated Decision Support for innovative analysis and health care scorecard for novel decision framing.
Source: http://www.mckesson.com