Doha: The pharmacy automation services at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) cater for more than 90 percent of inpatients and all outpatient pharmacies across hospitals by providing more efficient and safe services to patients.
HMC’s pharmacy automation services across hospitals have a greater impact on patient experience as all systems are integrated, ensuring a smoother, faster and safer services, said Dr. Moza Al Hail, Executive Director of Pharmacy Department at HMC.
“More than 400 automated dispensing cabinets are installed at inpatient wards and more than 90 percent of the inpatient medication orders are dispensed using these cabinets. An automated dispensing cabinet not only allows point of care dispensing and storage of medications, but also facilitates electronic tracking and controlling of the medication distribution across the continuum of care,” Dr. Al Hail told The Peninsula.
The automated dispensing cabinets are implemented at each inpatient ward in all HMC hospitals, in addition to the surgical theatres which are equipped with electronic cabinets with touch screens for dispensing medicines.
These solutions have helped in dramatically reducing the waiting time to administer midicines while also reducing the error rates because they use ‘barcodes’ to retrieve medications.
“The efficiency of robotic automations is well-studied, to ensure accurate dosing and to minimise compounding errors at HMC, we are using the sterile compounding technology in our hospitals. Also Six IV robotics, one IV oncology robot and four parenteral nutrition compounding machines have been installed,” said Dr. Hail.
The outpatient robotics at pharmacies automate the dispensing process inside the pharmacy to ensure patient safety by delivering the right medications to the right patient. In addition to that, it reduces waiting time.
“At present, 13 robotic dispensers are used to dispense medications across outpatient pharmacies; this not only saves time for the patients, but also allows pharmacists to provide appropriate drug information and patient counselling on specific medications,” said Dr. Hail.
In 2021, Pharmacy Department at HMC dispensed 1.2 million medication boxes through outpatient robots.
Dr. Hail also emphasised that the pharmacy automation services played a significant role during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring substantially streamlined workflow and improved patient safety practices across HMC facilities.
The automation of pharmacy services was introduced and expanded over the years as a part of pharmacy strategy.
