Processes of the medicine’s supply chain are being automated more and more since about 10 years. Currently, technologies to facilitate storage, prescription, validation and dispensing of medication are made available to improve patient safety. The complexity of the supply chain requires a shared responsibility among the members in multi-disciplinary teams of importance for different professionals (clinicians, pharmacist, nurses, technician, and porters). There are still several steps executed manually and many smaller hospitals have not the funds to invest in new technology. Unresolved risks and safety issues along the supply chain remain to be elucidated in both manual and automated processes.  

Technology is a promising option to minimise complexity-induced human errors and, if properly designed and implemented, to improve outcome, benefit and effectiveness, thus serving to clinicians, taxpayers and patients interests. Once a new technology is implemented, errors can still arrive due to intrinsic deficiencies in the technology, user friendliness and software customization, lack of time for proper training, poor implementation plan or many further reasons. Technologies change the way in which work is performed. Whenever a new technology will be implemented, monitoring is a MUST to identify potential problems and improve permanently the quality according to the quality definition by Deming (plan, do, check, act).

 

 

• To share their experience with new automation and systematic robotic technologies in general;

• To provide a guidance on how to identify safety gaps in the supply chain which need to be to closed;

• To describe the motivation which led to decision to introduce a new technology into the supply chain; 

• To track the plan to successfully run through the implementation steps;

• To reproduce the evaluations performed and decisions taken for the selection of the most suitable technical option(s);

• To summarise the actions performed to validate the new technology;

• To quantify the error minimisation.

 

 

After the presentation the participant should be able:

 

• to apply the guidance obtained in this seminar in an own supply chain project;

• to analyse safety gaps in the supply chain in the own hospital;

• to identify and assemble the technical and organisational requirements to improve the safety in the supply chain;

• to evaluate and select the most suitable robotic option for the benefit of in- and out-patients;

• to supervise the implementation;

• to conclude on the quantitative improvement obtainable by automating processes in the supply chain;

• to improve and assure the supply chain quality.