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Robot at Alegent Health Works in the Pharmacy All Day, Every Day

Alegent Health has a worker in its inpatient pharmacy at Bergan Mercy Medical Center that stays all day, every day. That worker—the Homerus Robot by Pyxis--is 12 feet tall and will eventually dispense inpatient medications at Alegent Health’s metropolitan area hospital campuses.

"This robotic system is truly unique in the area and very exciting," said Angela Ward, operations director for pharmacy. Nearly 4,000 doses are dispensed to Alegent Health inpatients each day. "We see this as an opportunity to enhance patient safety and let our pharmacists spend more time consulting with physicians and nurses about patient care."

The robot (named S.A.M.I., which stand for Safe Accurate Medications for Inpatients, in an Alegent Health employee naming contest) itself is 12 feet tall and has 11 mechanical rings which each contain 72 spirals. On each spiral there are 20 grooves that each hold a medication. When fully loaded, S.A.M.I. can hold 15,840 doses of medication. Currently, the pharmacy has about 320 different drugs on the robot or about 13,000 doses, Ward said.

"Having this system places us on the leading edge of patient care in the country," said Donald Manning, M.D., the chief medical officer for Alegent Health. Only three other pharmacy robots of this type have been installed in the United States, but Alegent Health’s robot is the only one that will serve an entire health system. "When we discussed this system with Pyxis, the focus always stayed on patient safety and satisfaction. This system will definitely help eliminate possible medication errors."

Medication errors occur most frequently at three different points in the prescription process—when physicians make the initial order, when the pharmacy fills the prescription, and at the time of medication administration. S.A.M.I. addresses issues when the prescription is filled, and in the next few years Alegent Health will use new technology to help reduce errors at the other two points in the process. The health system is investigating a variety of different devices that are designed to make bedside medication scanning and physician prescription ordering possible.

The safety process for S.A.M.I. starts when it packages bulk medications into individual packets. Each packet contains the generic name of the drug, the brand name, the dosage, the formulation, expiration date, lot number and a bar code that contains all of this information. The robot then takes the packages and puts them into its spiral and groove system. When a medication request come in, the medications are picked from S.A.M.I. for each patient by scanning the bar code. The medications are removed from the spiral, placed on conveyor belts and emptied into a waiting drawer. S.A.M.I. is currently picking 500 doses per hour.

"The bar code scanning prevents the human error that can occur when the medications are manually picked out of bins," Ward said. "Studies have shown that 11 percent of medication errors occur when the pharmacy dispenses a medication. That won’t happen with this system."