Creating a Pharmacy where Patients Connect with their Pharmacists

Green Medic Pharmacy AEON Store was opened in 2007 by Green Medic, operator of four community pharmacies in Toyonaka City (Osaka Prefecture), in the AEON Town shopping mall of Toyonaka Midorigaoka. One of Osaka City’s bedroom communities, the area has a high-income population of people in their 30s and 60s and a wide range of medical facilities and pharmacies. AEON Store’s goal, since opening, has been to free up pharmacists’ time to spend with patients by automating dispensing and to create a pharmacy where patients can connect with their pharmacists.

Green Medic opened its main pharmacy in 1995 with the philosophy of “A pharmacy that contributes to community healthcare” and began filling outpatient prescriptions in the local region. Green Medic has since opened three more pharmacies within walking distance, advanced automated dispensing, and introduced cloud-based electronic medication history system (15 years ago) to enable input and output from all terminals in all stores. This has succeeded in achieving “human optimization” and “consistent service” that proposes to oversee patients in the area.

22 years ago, after graduating from university in pharmaceuticals and working for a pharmaceutical company, Kouzo Tada, (President of Green Medic and Vice President of Toyonaka City Pharmaceutical Association) noticed an inequitable division of labor in Tokyo and vowed to “open a pharmacy in a residential neighborhood that fills prescriptions for the local community and allows patients to connect with their pharmacists.”
Since opening, Mr. Tada has been committed to the formulation of Chinese herbal medicines and initiatives to further enhance the trust of local residents. In 1999, he began contributing to the community pharmaceutical health through his involvement in medical home care while starting his career in clinical dispensing.

Today, he continues to improve the pharmacy profession by organizing “preventive medicine” events (food, sleep, sunlight) and offering health counseling to reduce the number of medications, challenging pharmacists to change their behavior. Mr. Tada’s management philosophy is undoubtedly the forerunner of the Japanese government’s current Health Support Pharmacies initiatives.

Mr. Tada emphasizes his theory: “Instead of the negative syllogism that if residents get healthier, there will be fewer patients and fewer prescriptions, we should understand that helping to keep the community healthy will attract new prescriptions as a result.”

He goes on to say, “This requires the economic volume to open four pharmacies in the area” and continues, “To properly serve patients, pharmacists need to spend less time engaged in dispensing.”

Automating dispensing operations frees up time to spend with patients.

Automation of dispensing operations is essential for pharmacists to fulfill their true professional role. At Green Medic’s four pharmacies, all dispensing operations are automated from single dose dispensing to powder and liquid medication dispensing.
Among them, Green Medic AEON Store was one of the first to adopt the Litrea-III, a compact, fully automatic tablet dispensing machine with universal cassette (UC) compatibility. The pharmacy dispenses 3,000 prescriptions per month with a team of 11 people, including six pharmacists. The medical mall at AEON TOWN Toyonaka Midorigaoka has pediatricians, diabetic specialists, gynecologists, and dentists, and AEON Store handles prescriptions from approximately 300 medical institutions in Osaka Prefecture and 2,000 oral medications.

The UC in the Litrea III: Fully Automatic Tablet Dispensing Machine is an intelligent cassette that eliminates time-consuming manual dispensing and prevents dosage dispensing errors. A single cassette can be used for a variety of medications, providing flexibility as the number of medications increases. Dispensing is accomplished by assembling a UC for each medication and inserting it into the machine, preventing manual dose dispensing errors and increasing overall safety.

Key features include: 1) Different dispensing slot shapes for each medication type to increase the variety of medications that can be dispensed; 2) Locking mechanism + bar code verification to prevent accidental feeding; 3) Quick to pack without having to think about dosing times; 4) Automatic leftover medication collection (up to five tablets, visual inspection required), and 5) Ability to specify frequently packaged medications to a fixed cassette.

In addition to the UC, the “Litrea-III” is also equipped with the following features: 1) An RFID chip that automatically detects the position of the tablet cassette to prevent dispensing errors due to incorrect cassette placement; 2) Double-check detection of the RFID chip and the GS1 data barcode on the tablet drug box to prevent duplicate reads of the same items, and 3) Automatic four-color pen liner for easy and hassle-free color-coding of drug packages.

Takashi Hosokawa, a pharmacist at the Green Medic AEON Store, commented on the benefits of the UC and the introduction of the UC-compatible Litrea-III Fully Automatic Tablet Dispensing Machine. He said “It has helped to reduce workload and errors. We can now spend more time giving medication instructions to patients and performing inspection without the added mental pressure of not making a dispensing error.”

The dispensing automation system at Green Medic’s four pharmacies logically streamlines the preparation of medications based on instructions given when prescriptions are entered into the electronic medical billing system.

One example is their arrangement of pharmaceutical shelves with frequently used medications in the center of the where they are easy to reach, instead of the standard alphabetical arrangement.

Commenting on the significance of introducing the UC-compatible Litrea-III Compact Fully Automatic Tablet Dispensing Machine, Mr. Tada said, “It is one tool that pharmacists can use to change their behavior and contribute to community healthcare.”

（From the pharmaceutical reports）
Information as of July 2017