Pharmacy robots cut drug-dispensing errors

ROBOTS are replacing humans in the Irish pharmacy sector and ensuring drug-dispensing errors are virtually eliminated, a conference on patient safety heard yesterday.

A community pharmacist in Mallow, Co Cork, claimed the automated storage and retrieval system for medication he installed almost a year ago had virtually eliminated “drug picking” errors.

As soon as the pharmacist enters the required drug into the pharmacy’s computer, a robot automatically selects the medication, labels it and delivers it to the point of sale.