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Smart pharmacy..

DHA to launch smart pharmacy at its facilities

DUBAI, October 14, 2014

Dubai Health Authorities’s health facilities are set to move towards a smart pharmacy system, according to a top health official.

Essa Al Maidoor, director-general of the Dubai Health Authority, said: “The DHA health facilities will soon be fitted with a smart pharmacy system.  The system uses a robot to arrange medicines and dispense them.

“Pharmacists simply need to store medicines into the robot's vault before the machine sorts out the medicines according to the near date of expiry and arranges them in specific shelves based on the barcode of the medicines.

“The machines dispense the medicines and the pharmacist simply needs to give it to the patient. The system cuts the patient waiting time by 90 per cent and is highly beneficial to both healthcare facilities and patients.

The system will be able to handle between 15,000 to 100,000 medicines depending on the size of the system.

The regularly used medicines will be put into the high speed channel and in this channel up to 100 medicines can be dispensed within 30 seconds. Medicines that are not commonly used  are stored in shelves and  15 products can be dispensed in less than 10 seconds.

Dr Manal Taryam, CEO of Primary Health Care at the DHA, said: “The machine sorts out the medicines and dispenses the near expiry mediations first so that there is no wastage of medications. If there is any expired product in the system, it flags it and it is discarded by the system.”

The sorting for medicines is extremely time efficient due to the system, she said.

“The pharmacist simply needs to take the medicines received from the suppliers and put it into the system. The system sorts out the products and arranges them in the right place during barcodes.  Four hundred medicines can be sorted out in less than 30 minutes making it extremely time efficient.”

Dr Nadia Al Marzouqi, acting-head of pharmacy, region two, in DHA’s primary health care sector added that after a doctor writes the e-prescription, it is transferred into the pharmacy's system.

By the time the patient reaches the pharmacy, the prescription is verified by the pharmacist and the medicine is dispensed, she added. - TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Smart | Pharmacy | DHA |

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