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How Long Term Care Pharmacy Industry Has Evolved Through Automation?

Author: Albert Zun
by Albert Zun
Posted: Jan 18, 2016

Change is a strong force which can easily reshape any living being, thing, community, as well as a complete industry. Something is right now being experienced by the long term care pharmacy industry. Automation and Robotic Pharmacy System have really brought forth major changes in this sector. Pharmacies have been wondering for long in what ways they can change the way they serve their clients. They have been looking for new ways to evolve the quality and patient safety standards. A recent law aimed at reducing the wasteful dispensing of prescription drugs by automating weekly, monthly, as well as daily dosages.

The law has compelled several pharmacies in modifying their prescription delivery systems to eliminate waste of medications in the LTC (Long Term Care) units. It is a great move which will also have a positive affect over the workflow of nurses and care quality that is given to the patients. These changes require the LTC facilities to understand the options available for them, they may select the most suitable solutions for their units, take care of the costs, resident benefits, as well as impacts on workflow.

For this purpose there are mainly two types of LTC medications that need special consideration. These are the facility-based dispensing and the centralized dispensing. Each category in itself includes several other types of systems that are in sync with legislation language. Each category is inspected with respect to a long lieu of criterion such as capital requirements, timeliness, medication accuracy, as well as efficiency.

The first system i.e. centralized dispensing includes regional pharmacy which is usually located within 2-4 hours distance from the LTC facilities it takes care of. These pharmacies usually label and pack the medications mostly for monthly based prescriptions and deliver them to the destined places multiple times a day. These kinds of pharmacies usually either use punch cards or multiple dosage strips packing.

The facility based packaging, on the other hand, are known for dispensing medicines on a daily basis or on-site. They generally use automated dispensing systems which are located in the facilities. While some nursing houses prefer to use licensed in-house pharmacies, there are a few others that prefer full-time pharmacists. This kind of dispensing system has two prime benefits, one they eliminate medication waste completely and two, medications are always available on a instant basis. It mainly uses EDKs along with medication cabinets and drug specific medication carts. All in all, the new systems have shown enormous impact over LTC facilities and have really eased up patients and residents lives.

For More Information Visit this : Nutraceuticals Pharmacy Automation
About the Author

The Future of Pharmacy Automation | Safe, Secure, Automated Storage and Retrieval for Pharmacy Drugs with RxSafe Pharmacy automation systems.

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Author: Albert Zun

Albert Zun

Member since: Sep 14, 2015
Published articles: 9

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