Tag: AutoPharm

Participating in the ASHP Summer Meeting from afar #ashpsm10

The inability to physically be in Tampa, FL shouldn’t stop someone from participating in the ASHP Summer Meeting. Technology doesn’t care that I’m 2700 miles away or that I’m sitting in my home in my bunny slippers with Diet Pepsi in hand. With a webcam and speaker phone I was able to join a user group discussion held by Talyst.
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Update on AutoPharm software only pilot

A couple of months ago we became a beta site for a Talyst AutoPharm software only solution. It’s not really a “software only” solution as it consists of a POS-X PC117 workstation, a Code CR3 scanner and a Zebra ZM400 printer, and of course Talyst’s AutoPharm software, but there are no carousels attached to it.
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Cool Technology for Pharmacy – AutoPharm

Our facility utilizes several software and hardware products from Talyst to manage our pharmacy inventory and support our goal of bar coding 100% of the pharmacy inventory. The entire system consists of the Talyst AutoCarousel system for automated carousel storage, their AutoPharm software for inventory management, their AutoPack system for packaging and bar coding our bulk medications, and their AutoLabel system for generating bar coded labels for items that aren’t bar coded from the manufacturer or whose bar codes aren’t easily read.
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Cool Technology for Pharmacy

While this item isn’t specifically designed for pharmacy, it is one cool piece of hardware; the POS-X PC117. The all-in-one workstation is on the list of hardware I received from Talyst as part of a new system that Kaweah Delta will be beta testing in the coming months. So, I wandered over to the Talyst customer portal where I found some additional information. I’m not positive, but it looks like this is the new workstation that the company will be using on their AutoPharm installations.

The POS-X workstation is a big improvement over the traditional use of a monitor and standard PC tower. It’s not exactly petite, weighing in at 24 pounds, but it’s still a real space saver.
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Thoughts on speech recognition in pharmacy

I still work in the pharmacy on occasion. It keeps me up to date with changes that I’ve made to various pharmacy systems and gives me the opportunity to make sure my pharmacist skills haven’t evaporated. One thing it doesn’t do is get me away from my current technology related duties. In fact it puts me closer to the action and even more accessible to pretty much everyone, which means I spend a majority of my “staffing” time dealing with things related to our automation; carousel picks and loads, packager fills, compunder checking, labeler input and checking, minor troubleshooting, etc. It’s not that someone else can’t do it, but that’s the way it works out.
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Use AutoPharm Remote Ordering to restock your clean room.

Prior to the days of a clean room, most pharmacies had a designated area with one or move laminar flow hoods where they compounded intravenous (IV) medications. For lack of a better term this area was cleverly called the “IV Room”. The laminar flow hoods created a sterile work environment from which the pharmacy technicians could work. It was not uncommon for anyone making an IV preparation to simply leave the “IV Room” and wonder around the pharmacy looking for supplies when they ran short.
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Thinking about a better Automated Dispensing Unit (ADU)

Automated Dispensing Units (ADUs), also referred to as Automated Dispensing Cabinets (ADCs), are nothing new to hospital pharmacy. Over 80% of hospital pharmacies use ADUs. The most common is a product from Cardinal called Pyxis MedStation. Others include Omnicell SinglePointe, McKessen AutoDose-Rx and medDISPENSE (part of Emerson Electric Co.). Currently Pyxis is the clear front runner, and for good reason. They offer a great product.
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Well, I asked for it. Comments and suggestions from previous posts.

If you float something out over the internet, someone is going to see it and keep you honest. Remember what I said, “There is always someone smarter, harder working, more motivated and better informed than me, and those are the people I want to hear from.” Well, those people have responded with some great information pertaining to barcoding and pharmacy automation. 
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Taking advantage of your carousel space.

gapinshelvesI have posted many times on our system for barcoding medications in the pharmacy. The posts have included reference to our efforts to increase storage space.  Our goals have always been to store as many medications as possible within the carousel to take advantage of the software’s many safety features and inventory functionality. 

Like all pharmacy departments we have several medication items that do not require significant storage space. I am talking about items like ophthalmic drops, otic preparations, small ointments and creams and some injectable items that are stocked in small quantities secondary to expense and lack of use. 

Small bins for storing opthalmic preparations.

During installation of our carousels we noticed small gaps in the shelving units. We approached one of the White Systems engineers on site and inquired about the small gaps. I don’t recall exactly why they were there, but the small size made the space virtually useless. Fortunately for us, the Talyst consultant that was on site to help us with the installation process sat down with us to come up with a solution. It was a simple idea really, but quite ingenious.  We purchased small bins that fit perfectly into the empty spaces. The size of the bin limited their utility for storage, but worked nicely for the smaller items mentioned above. The addition of the smaller bins created several empty spaces in the larger bins, giving us significantly more storage. 

 

 

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