Prescription automation is often taken to mean a dispensing robot, but a prescription passes through several stages before it reaches the patient, and each one can be automated in different ways. Looking at the whole journey, from dispensing to collection, shows where automation can save time and where it can reduce the chance of things going wrong.
This article follows a prescription through the pharmacy and looks at what automation can do at each stage.
Stage 1: Dispensing
Once a prescription has been processed, the medicines have to be picked. Original pack dispensing robots store medicines in their original packs and retrieve the right ones on demand, so staff spend less time walking the shelves. See what original pack dispensing is and how it works for a fuller explanation.
Stage 2: Packing monitored dosage systems
For patients who need their medicines in MDS packs, preparation is one of the most repetitive jobs in the pharmacy. MDS automation takes on the packing, using universal cartridges and built-in vision verification, for pouches or blister cards. Our guide on how MDS automation can make pharmacy more efficient explains the options.
Stage 3: Checking
Accuracy matters at every stage. Automated systems can support checking, for example through vision verification on packed MDS, but they do not replace the pharmacist’s professional checks. The point of prescription automation here is to remove avoidable manual steps, so the clinical checks get more of the team’s attention.
Stage 4: Storing and tracking
A finished prescription then waits for collection. Scriptlife helps pharmacies store and track prescriptions and notify patients, and our guide to scan-to-shelf in pharmacy explains how recording where each prescription is stored makes it quicker to find when the patient arrives.
Stage 5: Collection
MedLocker prescription collection kiosks let patients collect their medicines securely at a time that suits them, including outside opening hours, which takes pressure off the counter. We cover the time savings in how MedLocker helps pharmacies create capacity, and compare the approaches in MedLocker vs traditional prescription collection.
Why connect the stages of prescription automation
Each stage can be automated on its own, but the benefits add up when the stages work together. Systems that connect to your pharmacy system can mean less re-keying and fewer handovers between steps. Which stage to automate first depends on where your pharmacy is under most pressure, and our guides on where to start with pharmacy automation and what you can automate in a pharmacy can help you decide. Our guide to pharmacy automation in the UK brings it all together.
Want to see where prescription automation could help your pharmacy most? Our pharmacy efficiency review looks at your workflow, or get in touch to talk it through.
