A full automated, double loop medication process in action – awesome expierence

In our project there is I clear line between the choice of less beds,  a fixed amount of m2 and an 8 pct efficiency increase, to new solutions that will help the hospital to operate in the new environment. The best is of course a solution, that will meet those requirements and increase the overall quality of the care delivered. IT has a tremendous role in that equation. So instead of talking about an increase in beds or m2, the discourse is and must be about new solutions because the constrains are fixed.

Last week I was in France – Annecy to visit a hospital that was build a couple of years ago. On the IT side the wards, patient rooms, EHR, RIS/PAS etc we were quite up to speed. They did not have anything revolutionary installed, and they to had a lot of patient terminals that no clinician used. But then I realised they did not have any big medicine rooms on the actual ward only a small area with acute medicine. So that intrigued me, because New OUH will be build that way.

We were then allowed to visit their pharmacy and there I got a huge surprise. Everything was automated, every drug was tracked and medicine was delivered to the ward automatically based on the data the doctor ordered in the EHR. For the first time a saw the whole process automated and it was a great success.

An Italian firm had delivered the robots (I guess they are better on healthcare robots than on trains) and the system seems to run smoothly.

Pill pick robot and unit dosed medicine

So

1. Robot that cuts medicine from the blister packs into one unit packets
2. Robot that counts the units to ensure they are all there
3. Robot that packs the units in separate bags withs barcodes and RFID
4. Robot that stores the units
5. EHR registers medicine prescribed and send data to pill pick robot
6. Pill Pick robot then picks the units and packs them for the individual patient and bind them together
7. The medicine is then shipped to the ward by a tube system

The above is not a futuristic vision – it is real and in operation in France. It will save m2, increase efficiency and tremendously decrease the amount of adverse events due to errors in the medication process. What’s there not to like for a future digital, “small” and efficient hospital.?