Synergy Medical, an expert manufacturer of automated pharmacy systems, says that pharmacies using its SynMed® technology for high throughput dispensing of solid oral medications are freeing up technical and professional pharmacy staff’s time for more patient facing activities. This is resulting in pharmacies offering health-driven services and public health campaigns.
With more patients using monitored dosage systems (MDS), pharmacies are struggling to keep pace. One solution is to use automated dispensing systems, such as SynMed® ULTRA and SynMed® XF to reduce dispensing costs and enhance safety and precision. The combination of embracing technology and redeploying resources is increasing capacity to meet greater health demands. For example, pharmacy branches whose MDS are produced by SynMed® technology state that they now have time to run a range of private services such as diabetic screening, travel vaccination, blood pressure monitoring and weight management clinics.
SynMed® ULTRA and SynMed® XF systems are helping pharmacies boost productivity by using pick and place technology to dispense tablets via suction pipettes. This improves precision and patient safety by avoiding cross contamination, as well as system downtime for staff to clean excess powder inside systems, which regularly occurs with gravity container equipment that dispense drugs from cannisters using a common chute.
Using a SynMed® XF system, just one technician can accurately dispense solid medication in 240 blister packs every eight-hour shift (over 1000 packs/week) while SynMed® ULTRA, can produce over 3000 blister packs/week with two operators. This is a fraction of the time it would take to manually fill packs and means that pharmacies can increase productivity and confidently grow their business to take on new patients without compromising safety.
Unlike many pharmacy automation systems, SynMed® has the capacity to hold 400 to 500 drug containers, covering 98% of the total drug requirement for MDS production. Since pharmacists using the system only need to dispense 2 to 5% of their drugs manually, this reduces labour time and cost, as well as the risk of making dispensing errors.
Versatility is another benefit and SynMed® systems can prepare single and multi-dose blister packs using more than 40 pack formats from all the popular manufacturers. Pharmacies have freedom from being locked into a single manufacturer’s proprietary pack, as well as flexibility to adapt to new target markets and negotiate contract prices. Additionally, utilising SynMed® technology, pharmacy staff can calibrate containers on-site within five minutes, eliminating the downtime and expense of sending them to a third-party for calibration.
Martijn Veltmaat, Vice President Strategic Business Development Europe, at Synergy Medical stated: “The latest National Pharmacy Association’s quarterly update, reports 8.5% dispensing error rates in England. Some of these may have occurred due to time pressures staff face with filling more MDS and the number of different medications they have to put in them.
Our SynMed® Ultra and SynMed® XF systems could help safely overcome this filling problem and increase their pharmacy’s capacity to accurately dispense solid dose medication in a large range of MDS blister packs.”
Synergy Medical is the manufacturer of SynMed® systems and works directly with pharmacies without third-party involvement, acting rapidly to make system adjustments or improvements when needed. The technology is fully integrated with all major Patient Medication Record (PMR) systems and is fully supported for a minimum of 10 years, offering a longer life cycle than most automated pharmacy technologies. To find out more about SynMed® systems, please go to: http://SynMedrx.com
