Impact of automation on the safety of medication dispensing to health care facilities.
Year:
2018
Author: Beobide, I., Ferro, A., Miró, B., Martinez, S., Genua, M.I.
Imagen:
Article published in the journal Farmacia Hospitalaria that seeks to compare the incidence and severity of reported dispensing errors when dispensing to social-health centers is performed with a pill dispenser system versus a specifically selected automated dispensing system.
Voluntarily reported dispensing errors from two different periods were compared resulting in a retrospective pre-post observational study in seven geriatric social-healthcare centers of Matia Fundazioa.
A total of 408 dispensing errors were reported with manual dispensing versus 36 with automated dispensing, a relative reduction of 91%. Of these errors, 43 versus 6 reached the resident, respectively, and 5 errors versus 1 required at least follow-up.
The main conclusion of this study is that the implementation of an automated personalized dosing system has significantly improved safety in the dispensing and subsequent administration of solid drugs to health care facilities.