New Technology Eases Process of Dispensing Medication

May 25, 2010 | Journal & Courier, Lafayette – West Lafayette, Indiana

Now that a nursing home facility has an on-site medication dispenser, resident Esther Watkins has noticed that the nurses have more time to spend with her.

“They have a little more time to talk to you instead of spending all the time going through medications,” the 82-year-old said. “They get around a little faster in the evening, cause it’s already out for them and they don’t have to open as many boxes cause it’s already in little containers.”

Milner Community Health Care, a nursing and assisted-living facility in Rossville, has adopted new technology to make the medication dispensing process quicker and easier. The technology also helps to reduce pharmaceutical waste.

“In this industry, there is a significant amount of waste,” said Paul Leamon, president and chief executive officer for Wellfount Pharmacy. “Anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of those medications that we are sending will go back to the pharmacy.”
Wellfount Pharmacy, an Indianapolis-based pharmacy that serves facilities in Indiana, Missouri and Illinois, supplies long-term care facilities such as Milner with medications for patients.

The pharmacy started using the InSiteRx, which was manufactured by Talyst, in long-term care facilities last November.

Leamon said there are a number of advantages to using the new technology. He said the remote dispenser reduces labor costs by condensing the packaging process.

From the physician to the nurse that administers the drug, about 11 different people were involved in the process of preparing the medications for distribution before InSiteRx, Leamon said.

“This technology really helps us cut those number of touches down from 11 to 5,” he said. “The more humans that are involved in a process, the more chance for error.” According to Leamon, due to the new technology, the pharmacy is experiencing a 90 percent decrease in the number of returned medications to the pharmacy that typically result in large amounts of waste.

There is virtually no pharmaceutical waste since the new machine dispenses daily, according to Robyn Kline, a licensed practical nurse at Milner, she said the new dispenser also eliminates the need for nurses to count medications in between shifts. “We don’t have to count them because they are in the machine until they are dispensed to be given to the patient,” she said.

Kline also noticed a decrease in the amount of time it takes for nurses to distribute the medications to the patients.

“In turn our nurses have more time to spend with the residents themselves,” she said.