Pharmacy Robotics

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Pharmacy robotics is a subset of Pharmacy_Informatics that utilizes robotics technology to assist pharmacies in increasing efficiency and safety of medication dispensing.

Overview

From 2000 to 2009, the number of chain drugstores like CVS and Walgreens increased by 11% to 39,000 stores [1]. This increase has significantly increased prescription volume as well as the clinical services of pharmacy technicians and pharmacists. Pharmacy robotics can currently be found in nearly all settings of pharmacy practice, including inpatient acute care hospital and long-term care settings, outpatient retail settings, logistics and supply chain settings, and central fill warehouses utilized to mass dispense medications through mail order pharmacy programs and other distribution channels. According to BCC research, the global pharmacy automation technologies market should grow from $5.1 billion in 2019 to $7.8 billion in 2024 [2].

Inpatient Pharmacy

Inpatient pharmacy robotics assist pharmacy staff in a number of functions in both the acute care and long-term care settings. Functions currently utilized by pharmacy robotics include unit-dose picking for inpatient wards, in which specific medications are filled by robots for individual administration by nursing staff. Additionally, these robotic systems can assist in prepacking bulk medication for restocking in Automated_dispensing_machines. Examples of these systems include Swisslog's Pillpick [3] and Therapick [4] systems.

Other robots in the inpatient setting, such as Baxter's Intellifill IV [5], are designed to prepare individual syringes for intravenous compounding use.

Pharmacy robotics have additionally been utilized in institutional hospital settings to assist staff in delivering medications to patient-specific rooms [6].

Outpatient Pharmacy