Development and evaluation of a new automated dispensing system

Promptness of medicine preparation is one of the important tasks the pharmacy has to tackle. A new automated dispensing system has been developed in order to adopt parallel preparation of the prescription. The system consists of a large LAN system which is connected to a host-computer, control-computer, automatic preparation machines and conveyer lines. The prescription data issued by each physician are first audited by the host computer and then used as the date for preparation. Prepared data checked by pharmacists are delivered to the manual preparation station (tablets, powder, topical drugs, and solutions) as a preparation instruction sheet and transmitted directly to the automatic preparation machines (e.g. medicine bag printing machines and automatic tablet dispensing and packaging machines). In collecting the prepared medicines, a controlled conveyer line was established. The waiting time decreased significantly after the system was introduced. This system not only reduces actual medicine preparation time but also improves the progress of the dispensing operation efficiency.