Enhancing the Quality and Efficiency of Pharmaceutical Work

The store is in a residential area about a five-minute walk from the Sekime-Takadono Station in Osaka City. Staffed by three to four pharmacists and two to three clerks, the store receives about 140 prescriptions daily, mostly from nearby otolaryngology (ENT) and dermatology clinics. Many patients come to the pharmacy after visiting the ENT clinic, and just under half of them are children. Peaks times are before noon and from dusk onwards.

Cold symptoms such as sinusitis, otitis (swimmer’s ear), and allergic hay fevers are often treated with powder medications, meaning that pharmacists were constantly overwhelmed with weighing out each prescription. The store also faced staff shortages which led to further delays and stagnated operations.

In December 2022, the Sekime Store introduced the Yuyama SR-zero to address these issues. The SR-zero automatically dispenses, distributes, and packages, the required dosage of powder medication while weighing it from a dedicated cassette (300cc capacity) set on top of the machine. It reads the prescription data from the receiver and displays information including the patient’s name, name of the medication, and the clinical department on the monitor. It takes about 3 minutes to eject the packaged powder from the bottom of the machine.

The introduction of SR-zero has reduced pharmacists’ workload of weighing medications, allowing them to dispense other medications, write out medication histories, and perform other tasks in the time that was saved. Ms. Kawahara says “Recently, we’ve seen a significant increase in prescriptions during the hay fever season. I used to struggle to find the time to write out medication histories, due to my busy schedule. Now I can write them while leaving the powder medication dispensing to the machine.”

The SR-zero has helped strengthened direct patient care by taking away the stress of weighing medications and giving pharmacists some leeway. As family pharmacists, they can now devote more time to providing detailed instructions on medications and responding to patient inquiries with care and attention.

Despite its compact size (76cm in width), the SR-zero can hold up to five powder medication cassettes. One of its greatest advantages is that it optimizes efficiency by minimizing the need for cassette changeovers. The machine will not dispense medications from cassettes without prescription data to prevent dispensing errors.

To take full advantage of the machine’s features, the Sekime Store keeps high-use medication cassettes, such as intestinal medications which are often prescribed along with antibiotics, loaded in the machine. They have a total of 15 cassettes which are filled with cough suppressants, antibiotics, antihistamines, and other frequently prescribed medications, and lined up next to the SR-zero.
Prescriptions for medications not in cassettes are manually weighed, as before, and then fed into the machine from the manual feeder on the top right side. Tablets are fed from the manual feeder on the top section of the machine.

Enhanced functionality to prevent errors

The SR-zero is equipped with numerous error prevention features. To eliminate human error, the SR-zero will not start dispensing if the loaded cassette does not match the order. In addition, if an order is received for a dosage that exceeds the amount remaining in the cassette, it will instruct the user via the monitor to refill the cassette in advance.

Finally, the dispensing process is recorded with video and graphs for added safety. An internally mounted camera captures footage of the weighing and distribution process so that the user can confirm if the product was properly packaged.

The store’s previous automatic dispenser was not compatible with automated weighing, had only two manual feeders, and could only feed up to two medications at a same time. This meant that, when prescriptions for three or more powder medications came in at the same time, the pharmacist would have to mix two of the medications and rearrange them before feeding them into the machine. Most pediatric prescriptions contain three or more ingredients which increased the pharmacists’ workload. The SR-zero’s ability to handle small-quantity pediatric dispensing of dosages, as small as 0.3g per cassette, is one of its most attractive points.

The automatic cleaning function is one of the SR-zero’s prized functions. The machine pours baking soda along the path of the dispensed product and automatically cleans its after dispensing. It also cleans the cassettes after it is loaded to prevent cross-contamination. “With the previous dispenser, we had to clean it every time after dispensing medication for only one patient. This is quite burdensome, and when you dispense medication manually, there is a higher risk of contamination. With the SR-zero we don’t have that worry” says Ms. Kawahara.

The Sekime Store began providing home medical care in April of this year and is taking in patients from institutions and other facilities. The time saved with the introduction of the SR-zero is being used to prepare for home medical care. Ms. Kawahara says, “When a pharmacist is out of the pharmacy, we have run it with one less person. I would like to use the time saved to enhance our home medical care services.”

（From the pharmaceutical reports）

Information as of August 2023