Robots Dispense Drugs to Keep Us Safer

An estimated 1.5 million drug errors take place each year in the US alone. If we do the math, that means the average number of medication errors made in the hospital is one error, per patient, per day.

So, if you or your loved one spent five days in the hospital, then five or more medication errors may have been made. You were given the wrong drug, or the wrong dose of the right drug, or it was given to you at the wrong time, or perhaps it was missed entirely, instead given to someone else.

How does that happen?

There are a handful of reasons, all of which boil down to human error. It's possible the packaging for one drug looks too similar to the packaging for another. That's what happened with the Quaid twins. The 10 unit drug vial looked too similar to the 10,000 unit vial, and either the pharmacy tech or the dispensing worker chose the wrong one. Three babies died from that same error in 2007.

Another reason is drug names that are too similar. What's the difference between Celebrex and Cerebyx? It might be life and death.

So you can imagine that I took notice when my colleague, Kate Bracy, About.com's guide to menopause, sent me a link to a news article about a robotic system that packages and dispenses drugs at Loyola University Hospital.

Remove the human -- remove the error?

There are several computer-aided prescribing and dispensing systems available, and they are in use in a small number of hospitals across the country. They are expensive, as you can imagine, and too few hospitals are willing to pony up. The ones that do, at least, place the same value on an individual's life as the individual's loved ones do. Those systems are effective in double checking the prescriptions written, weighing them against other drugs and protocols a patient receives, and helping later to check that the right patient is being given the right drug. They use databases and bar codes. A good use of technology.

But a robot -- it's the next step. This robot packages 3,200 different drugs just the way the patient is supposed to receive them. A little Jetsons perhaps -- but one more safety step to keep patients safe.

If you or a loved one is facing a hospital stay, ask about how drugs are prescribed and dispensed in the hospitals you might choose from. If possible, consider choosing one which uses a computer-aided system, even better, one that uses a robot, too.

Because when you are sick and debilitated enough to be in the hospital, you can't possibly catch every mistake that might be made. If you have the choice to let the technology be an advocate for you, it will be well worth it.
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