Technologies used in modern pharmacy practice

Let’s talk about the importance of Automation and Technology support pharmacy staffs in medication dispensing and increasing efficiency and accuracy Re-direct We can re-direct staff time from routine technical task to more direct patient care activities There are several common types of Automations and E-technology in practice or in the development It depends on the progress and resources in different countries or areas

For example the CPOE system is the basic requirement in the system As I told you Taiwan pharmacy has almost 100% CPOE system in the US in the year 2016 over 90% of hospitals employ CPOE system The Clinical Decision Supportive System is also evolving and developed rapidly in recent years There are many commercialized system available but very expensive They are powerful tool to help the medical staffs to make clinical decision and support impromptu information in practice

The automatic dispensing cabinets are popular in the US More than 90% hospital use ADCs Here I list several big brand in the market Some hospitals in Taiwan and Asia countries have already employed ADC system in their practice They are expensive as well but proved efficient medication supply better inventory management The smart pumps is also important for improving patient safety in intravenous medication therapy It can incorporate several safety mechanism to avoid errors in infusion therapy

This is the Automatic Dispensing Machine used popularly in most hospitals in Taiwan By photo scanning or manual check it can pre-screen preventable dispensing errors It can prepare meal package stat order or discharge medicines with complete information in the bag or through barcode It also linked to the medication safety system The nurse can identify patient information and drug information through barcode medication administration system In TVGH we also cooperate with the manufacturer to develop the Automatic machine for IV drug dispensing Through this system we can provide better dispensing quality services for injection medicines We also build up homemade information system incorporated with iPAD in UD cart dispensing In the future the pharmacist can receive the most updated information to prepare for UD cart It can also provide most important simplified patient information while dispensing Such as allergy bodyweight renal or liver functions and clinical chemistry In terms of the medication bag labeling 15 years ago the pharmacy department director Dr.

Chou lead an evolutionary innovation on medication bag reform In the beginning the basic philosophy is Regarding patient safety during drug administration patient is the last gatekeeper for medication safety Actually in the past our medication bag only print limited information the content and layout of our bag are similar with those in other hospitals The newly development medication bag is bilingual with comprehensive information including dosage drug name clinical use and medicine instructions and also storage possible drug interaction and severe adverse drug reactions This innovative medication bag has got patents from Singapore Japan and Taiwan and won several awards After we use the new medicine bags with comprehensive information patient enquiries reduce from 10 thousand to 2 thousand per month Thereafter, all the hospitals in Taiwan followed us to upgrade their medication bags So it is really an revolutionary event in hospital pharmacy practice After this action the government revise the regulatory requirement for Medication Bag Labeling in Taiwan There are 10 mandatory information items including patient’s name sex name of medication dosage of administration frequency of administration route of administration quantity institution pharmacy’s name address and phone number name of the dispensing pharmacist date of dispensing and warnings And then they are 3 additional suggested items clinical effects side effects and special instructions

In terms of the Chemotherapy dispensing facility TVGH is also the leading pioneer using Closed System Transfer Devices to reduce contamination during the process of aseptic preparation As for Total Parenteral Nutrition and Chemotherapy Dispensing We set high standard safety requirement and dispensing procedures All the chemotherapy orders are online verified by clinical pharmacist and the chemotherapy medications have to pass the nine levels checks to ensure Zero error happens We are the leading pioneer to use Closed System Transfer Device which is to prevent bag puncture The contamination rate have been decreased to only 1/40 of the previous rate After the chemotherapy drugs dispensing each of the drugs will be attached with a label that contains stability and administration information The delivering process has also been well regulated We are the first hospital to use barcode medication administration system Nurses carry the administration cart with computer to bedside when they are on service In every administration service a nurse reconfirm the correctness of the medication by scanning barcode on the patient’s wristband and medication bags The computer also show the medication pictures for double-checking the correctness of the medication by nurses