‘Pharmacy Robot’ Fills Prescriptions Flawlessly at Hospitals

It stocks shelves. It fills prescriptions. It even bills patients automatically.

But one thing it won’t do is talk back to the boss.

The “Pharmacy Robot,” a new, high-tech computer system that can stock and retrieve drugs flawlessly in record time, is finding its way into hospitals around the country. Twenty-five facilities have already installed the system, and others are jumping at the chance to better their pharmaceutical operations.

Developed around 1990 by Automated Health Care Inc. of Pittsburgh, the idea of an automated prescription-filling system immediately caught on. Hospitals were interested in using a computer-operated system, which could ensure accuracy and reduce the possibility of human error.

Out of 30 million prescriptions the robots have filled so far, there have been zero errors.

Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital, one of the first in the country to install such a system, got its robot in September 1994. After a year’s time, the robot is now responsible for the filling 85% of the hospital’s prescriptions.

“There was some apprehension at first,” said Donna Gurcak, supervisor of pharmacy operations. “But that soon disappeared after they saw what it could do for us.”

Pharmacists at the University of Maryland Medical Center are anxious for their robot pharmacist to come later this month.

“If you can go to a bar and they’ve got touch screens to help them make their drinks and keep their bar tabs, then you should be able to expect the same kind of technology helping your doctors when you go to the hospital with your life on the line,” said Perry Mackrill, patient care coordinator at the Baltimore hospital.

The robot is connected to the hospital’s computer system and recognizes any possible drug interaction problems or allergies. It can stock 1,000 doses of medications in just 20 minutes.

“When the physician writes an order, the computer keeps track of it,” Mackrill said. “The system will do a couple of screenings and ask questions every time a prescription is filled.”

The system looks more like a video camera on a pole than the typical robots--clunky Star Wars-type figures--in the movies.

It sits in a 35-foot-long glass tunnel, and hydraulic air pumps whoosh it back and forth on a metal rail. An infrared eye passes over bar codes on little bags of medication just as they are sucked off racks with suction cups, to be deposited in labeled bins taken to patients’ bedsides.

The size of each robot varies from hospital to hospital, depending on space and needs.

While most of the response toward the system has been positive, there have been some bugs to iron out.

The robot is programmed to dispense doses to patients on a schedule. In its early stages of development, Perry said, it couldn’t understand one common physician’s phrase.

“The robot just couldn’t distinguish what ‘as needed’ meant,” Mackrill said. “It has to have an actual time to dispense the medication.”

So the robot dispenses the drugs all at once, leaving it up to nurses to decide when a patient needs them.

The robot also can’t handle controlled dangerous substances, refrigerated drugs and doses that are larger than the five-inch bags used with the system.

Those most worried about the new robots are pharmacists who fear that the technology will make them obsolete. But many hospitals insist that the pharmacists will still be needed.

University of Maryland Hospital pharmacy director Joseph Gallina said the robot will help the pharmacists be more efficient and reduce the amount of human error.

“It can process information in just a few seconds that may have taken hours or even days,” Gallina said.

Tina Pugliese, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists, said the addition of these robots comes as part of a new movement that is helping the pharmacist of the 21st century adapt.

Many pharmacists are getting more involved in their patients’ care and helping them monitor the interaction of the drugs they take, she said.

“It frees us up from nominal tasks so we can do counseling for our patients,” said Janet Engle, a professor of pharmaceuticals at the University of Illinois in Chicago. “If [pharmacists] spend more time with their patients, they’ll know their histories and be able to provide better care.”