Residents at Kerikeri Retirement Village are less exposed to human error now that Robyn’s packaging their meds. Robyn’s a robot and she just doesn’t mess up. She can’t.
Robyn belongs to Unichem Kerikeri Pharmacy, which dispenses meds for our residents. Until now their monthly medicine packs were filled with tablets painstakingly by a real Robyn using tweezers.
Now she’s on maternity leave and the robot does the four-day job in just one.
Information about which tablets someone needs is stored in the OneChart medical system – a database used by doctors, pharmacists and carers. Robyn reads this information and selects a combination of tablets from 60 canisters. These are then fed, like confectionary from a vending machine, into transparent trays with separate compartments, or pottles, for each day’s medication.
Safeguards ensure accuracy. Each of Robyn’s canisters is configured to dispense only one type of tablet. Barcodes ensure that the correct meds are printed onto the covers of each pack, and that what’s in the packs corresponds to what’s on the covers. Finally, packs are inspected by a pharmacist to ensure a match between covers and contents.
Accuracy and security for our residents and efficiency for our supplier. How good is that? Oh, and of course the real Robyn’s still got her job when she gets back from maternity leave. She’ll just be spending less time filling pottles!
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