Pharmacy Lab 1015 is designed to teach and allow Pharmacy Technician students to practice critical, entry level task required of pharmacy technicians in hospitals, long-term care facilities, home health, retail, institutional and community settings. The course focuses on hands-on lab work. The topics covered the semester include information sources, drug knowledge, accurate calculations and measurement, practice of computer skills, customer relations, reviewing and processing prescriptions, application of rules and regulations, institutional pharmacy and non-sterile compounding.
One of my favorite labs we did this semester was learning about all the different automatic drug dispensing systems. I found this lab very interesting. In my opinion, automatic drug dispensing systems are very important in the pharmacy setting. They are able to ensure accuracy as well as keeping inventory for the pharmacy and ordering mediations automatically when inventory is getting low.
For this lab we learned about three different automatic drug dispensing cabinets the Omnicell, Pyxis and Accudose. We watched videos explaining how each system worked and were asked to answer the following questions:
What are significant differences between the three systems?
What are the benefits of having ADSDS's versus having medications for specific patients in personalized bins?
Which system seems most conducive to the stocking functions of a pharmacy technician?
Automatic Drug Dispensing Cabinets
For the most part the Omnicell, Pyxis and Accudose are pretty similar. The Omnicell seems to be the smallest out of the three and only has a few drugs. The narcotics are under locked containers while the other drugs have opened containers. All the medications are kept in the same Omnicell narcotics are just separated into a different drawer from the other medications. The Pyxis is very large. One thing that was mentioned in the video that was different about the Pyxis is they have the stock outside of the system of things that are used often and don’t have to be charged to the patient. You can go over without logging in and take what you need but they still have a system that tracks when inventory is getting low as long as people mark when they remove something. The biggest difference I noticed with the Accudose was that the narcotic medications had their own separate machine, instead of keeping it in the same one as all the other medications. Overall, they have a lot of similarities but there are some small difference between the three systems. I’m sure there are quite a bit of benefits of having ADSDS’s instead of having medications for specific patients in personalized bins. One, the system keeps track of inventory for you and will alert you when you are getting low and some of them even order the medication for you. Second, it is faster if a patient has a change in medications to have it changed in the system and pulled from a drawer that already has the medication there instead of having to wait for pharmacy to come and add the new medication to the patient’s bin. Finally, it is safer for the patient and is a better way to ensure that the patient is getting the correct medications with the correct dosage. Personally I think as a pharmacy technician I would like the Pyxis the best out of the 3 options. It seems to be the most up-to-date and not as old as the other machines. It also keeps track of the inventory for you, alerts you when a medication gets low and I believe it even orders the low medications for you. I also liked how it has the other stock of items that are commonly needed but not charged to the patient. It is easy to go over, check out the item and take what you need but it is also keeping inventory for you at the same time. This machine looks very effective and user friendly.