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Robot pharmacist reduces medication errors

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, January 17, 2005

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Evergreen Hospital Medical Center in Kirkland, WA has seen a 25% decrease in medication errors over the past nine months, according to the King County Journal. That's because Ernie, a $3 million robot, distributes 93% of the hospital's drugs.

Before using the robot, the hospital dispensed about 3,000 doses per day and had a .5% error rate, "which is tremendous," said Bob Blanchard, pharmacy director at Evergreen.

With Ernie's help, the hospital has "virtually eliminated dispensing errors from the pharmacy," he says."The robot does not make that kind of mistake where it dispenses the wrong kind of medication."

Ernie-short for Evergreen Robot Noticeably Improving Efficiency-has a rotating arm that uses suction cups to grab packets of barricaded doses, according to the article. Ernie's lasers repeatedly scan the bar codes on the medication to ensure that it has the right drug. If bar codes do not match, Ernie will fling it to the ground or drop it in a rejection bin for pharmacists to examine.

In the robot's first two weeks, the state Board of Pharmacy required that the hospital verify all of the robot's drug selections. Now, pharmacists check a percentage of each day's robotically filled doses.

To read the King County Journal article, click here.

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