Dispenser counts out pills for New York hospital pharmacy, frees time for patient consults

United Health Services Retail Pharmacy at Binghamton (N.Y.) General Hospital is using an automatic pill dispenser to free up pharmacist time, according to Fox affiliate WICZ. 

The dispenser, called the PharmAssist, gets an order from a pharmacist, automatically counts out the medication and sends an alert when it is done counting.

The goal is to free up time, so pharmacists can focus on patient consults, according to Meaghan Owen, supervisor of the pharmacy supervisor for UHS.

"The major benefit of these is the efficiency and the reduced multitasking," she said, adding that the new machine results in "one less step that we have to complete ourselves, so it really saves us with efficiency, and it is much safer than doing manual counts."

The machine holds 100 different slots for the most common prescription medicines. 

Read the full report here. 

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