Pharmacy Automation

In the Clean Room: A Review of Technology-Assisted Sterile Compounding Systems in the US [report]

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For the better part of the past year I’ve been working on a project with Mark Neuenschwander of The Neuenschwander Company looking at technologies used in pharmacy clean rooms to prepare sterile compounds.

The research into this area took much longer than originally anticipated. We discovered along the way that this subject is much more complex than it appears on the surface. Information is difficult to find, some of the technologies are little more than marketing material on a company website, and the subject matter is in its infancy.

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Cool Pharmacy Technology – WillCall Rx from SencorpWhite

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I had an interesting call with an account executive from SencorpWhite last week. He and I talked about several things, but one thing I found particularly interesting is something the company is doing in the outpatient pharmacy space with horizontal carousels. Carousels are neat technology for those that have a need for automated storage space, i.e. you’re “space challenged” in your pharmacy. When coupled with bar-code scanning technology carousels are a good way to manage all kinds of inventory in a pharmacy.

The system from SencorpWhite is referred to as WillCall Rx and consists of several components designed to store and retrieve prescription items that have been filled and are ready for patient pickup. I’m familiar with the WillCall Rx system and have had the pleasure of seeing it up close and personal in two large outpatient pharmacies attached to large medical centers. It’s a neat concept.

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Things get interesting as #Aesynt acquires Health Robotics

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Business Wire: “Aesyntâ„¢ announced it has completed the acquisition of Health Robotics, the leading global supplier of automated technology for intravenous (IV) medication preparation, compounding and dispensing.” For those of you that have short memories, Aesynt is basically a spin-off of the acute care pharmacy side of McKesson. It’s a big group that specializes in … Read more

PillPack: a new way of thinking about an old problem

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I read a Wall Street Journal article this morning about an online pharmacy called PillPack that’s doing something a little different. “PillPack mails its customers their medications every two weeks, but rather than putting them into several big bottles, the company pre-sorts them into sealed, single-dose packs, based on when a patient needs to take … Read more

What are you looking for in a “workflow management system” for the IV room?

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A recent “I’ve been thinking…” by Mark Neuenschwander got me thinking; no pun intended. Mark and I have been working on a barcode medication preparation (BCMP) project for the last couple of months. My interest in pharmacy automation and technology coupled with his passion for barcoding in healthcare and patient safety have created a good working relationship. We’re currently looking at the state of BCMP as it relates to compounding in the IV room.

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High-speed unit dose packagers for pharmacy

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There are a lot of pharmacies out there that utilize high-speed packagers for one reason or another. Sometimes medications aren’t available in unit-dose packages from the manufacturer, or in one case that I came across recently, a pharmacy may elect to package from bulk bottles for efficiency and/or cost savings.

I haven’t given much thought to high-speed packagers in a while because they seem to be a low priority in many pharmacies these days. But I had reason recently to give them some thought. Someone sent me an email asking me about the various high-speed packagers on the market, who sells them, who they’re made by, etc. So I put together the table below. It covers the basics.

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Swisslogs introduces next-gen RoboCurrier Autonomous Mobile Robot

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Swisslog has been making these little robots for a long time, although I don’t see many of them in the wild these days.

They’re pretty cool in their own right. The robots themselves are reasonably small. The previous version was only 35-inches tall, and weighed in around 100 pounds. But they could carry up to 50 pounds worth of cargo and could navigate around the hospital completely on autopilot. I’m not entirely sure, but I believe they use RFID technology to navigate.

[Update 08 01 2013]: According to Swisslog the RoboCurrier “utilizes an obstacle avoidance system and mapping software that’s set up during installation“.

One of the coolest features though is use of a prerecorded message to announce its arrival.

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Saturday morning coffee [March 30 2013]

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MUG_MPSo much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

The coffee mug to the right comes straight from Moonstone Pottery in Los Osos, California. It’s a pretty cool mug. It was a gift from my brother, Robert. Thanks bro.

The Croods was #1 at the box office last weekend to the tune of nearly $44 Million. I didn’t see that one coming. I knew that the movie was out, but had no interest in seeing it. My family chose instead to see Olympus Has Fallen. It was terribly predictable and a bit corny, but I liked it. It was full of lots of gratuitous violence and gun play, which makes it my kind of movie. Just for the record, Jack the Giant Slayer has officially flopped at the box office.

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Center for the study of pharmacy automation and technology [idea]

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Earlier this week I put up a post about a Prezi created by Dr. Robert Hoyt called Evidence Based Health Informatics: Replacing Hype with Science. It was a great presentation about a lot of the technology that healthcare has adopted over the years without any real evidence to back it up. I wish you could … Read more

#1 thing to consider when buying pharmacy automation and/or technology…

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There are a ton of things to consider when you’re thinking about putting new technology in the pharmacy. You have to consider the cost, the impact on your operations, the reputation of the company that you’re buying from, what type of technology you’re going to buy, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. However, … Read more