Can you give an overview of Kaga Psychiatric Hospital?

We are a 184-bed psychiatric hospital. Our pharmacy team consists of four pharmacists who are responsible for about 100 inpatient prescriptions per day. In total, we dispense 150 prescriptions per day, including patients in the facilities. All outpatient prescriptions are handled outside of the hospital.
All 150 prescriptions are for tablets. We have one pharmacist in charge of packaging and an average of two pharmacists in charge of inspections on a rotating basis.

Can you tell me why you introduced TabSight?

Dispensing inspections are high-pressure and time-consuming. At the main psychiatric hospital, all tablets are packaged and given to the patient in packages even if there is only one tablet. This helps prevent medication intake mistakes.
The number of tablets per package is comparatively high, sometimes as many as seven or eight, which adds a lot of mental pressure and effort to inspection duties.
In addition, one of our employees had to leave the company due to health problems, and we were having a hard time coping. I started thinking about ways to simplify the process. That’s when I heard that a new inspection machine was available and jumped at the chance.

After gaining interest, what processes did you go through before deciding to introduce the TabSight?

When the salesperson introduced the product in a brochure, I thought, “If this can reduce the workload of medication inspections, I would definitely like to try it.” I feel that about half of the time in dispensing is spent on inspections, so I wanted something that could help us with that.
The decision to introduce TabSight was relatively quick. I hadn’t seen the machine in person before it was introduced, but I had heard good reports from Fukui Prefectural Hospital and other pharmacists I knew. So, I had a relatively clear idea of what it would be like.

What changes have you seen since introducing TabSight?

The mental workload and sense of security for inspections is totally different from what it used to be. We pass all medications packaged by the tablet packaging machines through the TabSight for inspection. We also inspect all the packages with human eyes after running them through the TabSight, paying special attention to the first package and those that the TabSight displays as erroneous. Before introducing the TabSight, we used to look at every package with the same degree of attention. It was extremely stressful and tiring. We still inspect all packages, but the level of emphasis given to each one is different, as is our level of fatigue.
Now I have more time to focus on the content, instead of just simply packing and distributing. The packaging and distribution aspect is much easier.

What do you think of TabSight’s medication image registration process?

Registering the medication images was slightly troublesome at first. It takes time to register the photo images and the medications we use for the photographs cannot be used because they have been touched by hand or have glue on them. It’s a waste of expensive medications and money. Ideally, I’d like to have a master image.
Since we run all our dispensed medications through the TabSight, it would be nice to be able to connect it directly to the dispensing.

Do you use the images recorded on TabSight for later confirmation?

There were two or three times. Some patients receive a week’s worth of medication and manage it themselves. One time a patient complained that their medication for that day was missing, but I explained to them that they had received their medications after checking the images recorded by TabSight.

The dispensing machine you use in conjunction with TabSight is the Universal Cassette (UC) equipped Litrea-III. Have the number of errors picked up by TabSight dropped since implementing the UC?

Errors have almost completely disappeared. We rarely do manual dose dispensing now that we have the UC, and we can package more accurately. Now, we only do manual dose dispensing for half tablets.
The medication restocking system is great. Now, we only need one person for restocking because we can double check with the GS1 data bar and tablet cassette. This is helpful because we used to need a second person. The manual dose dispensing, inspections and restocking processes are now much easier now.

We are delighted to hear that our machines are helping to reduce your workload. We hope you will continue to give us feedback so that we can be of more help in the future. Thank you for your valuable time today.